LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 



Other Books by the Same Author 

** Browning's Italy " 

"Browning's England" 

**A Child's Guide to Mythology" 

"Ancient Myths in Modern Poets" 

A* 

THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY 
33 E. 17th Street, Union Square North New York 





LONGFELLOW'S 
COUNTRY 

BY 

HELEN ARCHIBALD CLARKE 

Author of 

"Browning's Italy," "Browning's England," 

"Ancient Myths in Modern Poets," 

etc., etc. 

NEW YORK 

The Baker and Taylor Company 

1909 





h\ 



CopyrigM, 1909, By 

The Baker & Taylor Company 



Published October, 1909 



24S662 



The Premier Press, New York 



^'^U 



Qratefully and Faithfully Inscribed 
to the PoeVs Much Loved Daughter 
MISS ALICE W, LONGFELLOW 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

The author desires to express her cordial thanks 
to Miss AHce W. Longfellow, and to Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. for permission to make quotations 
from the Poet's Works and Diary. 

Also to Dr. H. C. Porter for scientific informa- 
tion regarding Alg£e, to Miss E. F. Bonsall for help 
in securing views in Philadelphia, to Dr. Benjamin 
Rand for views in Nova Scotia, to Miss Helen Leah 
Reed for the automobile ride over Paul Revere 's 
route, and to the Magazine Poet-lore wherein was 
some of the material relating to the *' Skeleton in 
Armor" and *' Hiawatha" in studies by Charlotte 
Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. Along the Coast of New England - 3 

II. Under the Shadow of Blomidon - - 53 

III. Idyls from History - - - - 99 

IV. *'The New England Tragedies" - - 147 
V. The Lore of "Hiawatha" - - - 177 

VI. In Cambridge ----- 229 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Reef of Norman's Woe, Gloucester Harbor ... 4 

East Gloucester 8 

Eastern Point Light 14 

The Harbor at Marblehead 18 

Quaint Old Town, Marblehead 24 

Sea Weed 30 

Old Norse Tower 34 

Portland Harbor 40 

Light Half Way Rock, Portland 44 

Cape Blomidon, Nova Scotia 54 

Grand Pre, Showing Road Acadians Took to the Sea . 60 

Christ Church, Philadelphia 64 

Old Swede Church, Philadelphia 86 

Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia 90 

Friends' Almshouse, Philadelphia 94 

The Old North Church 104 

The Buckman Tavern 110 

Paul Revere's House 114 

The Monroe Tavern .118 

The Hancock-Clarke House 124 

The Standish House, Duxbury 130 

The Alden House, Duxbury 142 

The Old Elm, Boston Common 150 

The Rebecca Nourse House, Danver's Center .... 168 

Grand Arch, Apostle Islands, Lake Superior . . . . 188 

The Falls of Minnehaha 200 

Temple Gate, Sand Island, Lake Superior . . . .214 

The Longfellow Home, Cambridge 230 

Beacon Street Mall, Boston Common 240 

The Wayside Inn, Sudbury 246 

Elmwood, The Lowell House, Cambridge 250 



ALONG THE COAST 

OF 

NEW ENGLAND 



'Rich are the sea- gods: — who gives gifts hut theyf 
They grope the sea for pearls, hut more than pearls: 
They pluck force thence, and give it to the wise. 
For every wave is wealth to Doedalus, 
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work 
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, waves! 
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?" 

— Emerson. 



THE charm and variety, and, at times, the gran- 
deur of the New England coast impress it as a 
living memory upon the mind of any one who has 
had the good fortune to follow the summer-holiday 
advice of Emerson to "lie on the warm rock-ledges and 
there learn a little hut suffices like a town," or who, 
viewing it in its sterner aspects, feels the urge and 
power of the sea as the poet has concentrated them in 
the line "Pluck force thence and give it to the wise." 
We shall be foolish, indeed, if, when we make our sum- 
mer pilgrimages to the coast, we do not go in com- 
pany with the poets who love the sea; for to the 
gifts of color and motion and force brought to us by 
the sea they add the gifts of imagination. Thus, if we 
will, besides reveling in straightforward appreciation 
of ever-present beauty, we may track to their sources 
the springs of the poet's fancy — storing our minds 
with curious or by-gone lore. Delightful as it would 
be to think that the workings of a poet's imagination 
require no more strenuous exertion than \he giving 
to "airy nothings a local habitation and a name"; as 
a matter of fact, his poetic flights are invariably based 
upon knowledge obtainable by the most humdrum in- 
telligence. 

We know that Longfellow loved the sea, not only 
because of his frequent references to it in his poetry. 



4 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

but because he speaks of this love more than once, 
when clothed and in his right mind, in his journal. 
Of the view from Milton Hill, near Boston, he writes 
it "Commands a grand prospect over villages, fields, 
forests and the city, to the great sea itself, stretching 
blue and vapory beyond." And of the sea by Port- 
land there is this beautiful description: "At sunrise 
caught a glimpse of the fair city of my birth, rising 
beautifully in terraces above the sea — the calm, solemn 
sea, that I have seen so often, and that Jean Paul 
longed to see once before he died. A glorious scene, 
with market-boats rowing cityward, rocks, promon- 
tories, lighthouses, forts, and wooded islands." 

We may sail up and down the coast from Portland 
to Newport, where summer outings were frequently 
spent, and touch from time to time in our voyage 
many a spot made memorable in his verse. 

Not the least interesting, for various reasons, of 
these seaside poems is the Ballad of the Wreck of the 
'Hesperus on the Reef of Norman's Woe. This will 
come to be considered when a few more centuries have 
cast their mellowing shadows upon our rawness, an 
interesting bit of folk-lore, smacking of the soil as 
surely as any legend of Glooskap or Manabozho seems 
to do to-day. The poem actually has the naive sim- 
plicity of a folk-tale. Probably half the population 
of America now living shed tears when children over 
the fate of the skipper's little daughter, and many hun- 
dreds, if not thousands, have, in later years, entered 
Gloucester Harbor with a thrilling sense of being in 
the land of romance, when they passed the formidable 
reef, lying on the left as you enter the harbor, where 
the schooner Hesperus met her fate. But the grim- 



n^im^^^p 





W4 





THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 5 

ness of this cruel rock is never felt in all its possi- 
bilities of horror until some venturesome oarsman 
persuades you to row up to it and around it in the 
evening shadows after sunset. Though the bay be 
quiet as a mill-pond, and reflect in long, peaceful 
streaks the waning lights in the sky, yet about this 
reef the ocean seems to make vindictive thrusts at 
your boat, and the waves leaping upon the rocks moan 
and shudder like wraiths of the long-departed skip- 
pers. After the gruesomeness of this experience, it 
is with a sense of relief that the long row across the 
bay, home to East Gloucester, is accomplished. 

This is all just as our poet would have it. At the 
time when he wrote this poem and the other two bal- 
lads, "The Skeleton in Armor" and "Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert," he was in a fever of excitement to become 
the author of national ballads. Writing to George 
Greene in 1840, he said: 

"I have broken ground in a new field; namely, bal- 
lads, beginning with "Hesperus." The national ballad 
is a virgin soil here in New England, and there are 
great materials. Besides, I have a great notion of 
working upon the people's feelings. I am going to 
have it printed on a sheet, with a coarse picture on 
it. I desire a new sensation, and a new set of critics. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne is tickled with the idea, Fel- 
ton laughs and says *I wouldn't.' " 

Later he speaks in his journal of telling Hawthorne 
about his ballad and how he meant to have it printed 
on a sheet with a picture on top, like other ballads. 
Hawthorne was so delighted with the idea that he 
promised to distribute the copies to every skipper of 



6 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

every craft he boarded in his custom-house duties. 
Their criticisms were expected to be of great interest. 

Is the story told in this poem true? we ask when we 
are children. Yes, such a wreck occurred, though we 
glean from the poet's journal that he drew upon 
his imagination for the pathetic points in the story. 
Under date of December 17, 1839, Longfellow writes: 
"News of shipwrecks horrible on the coast. Twenty 
bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to 
a piece of the wreck. There is a reef called Norman's 
Woe, where many of these took place ; among others, 
the schooner Hesperus. Also the Seaflower on Black 
Rock. I must write a ballad upon this." Again, on 
the 30th of December, he wi'ites: "I sat till twelve by 
my fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind 
to write the 'Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus,' 
which I accordingly did. Then I went to bed, but 
could not sleep. New thoughts were running in my 
mind, and I got up to add them to the ballad. It 
was three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell 
asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly 
cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by 
lines, but by stanzas." 

In looking through the newspapers of the 16th and 
17th of December, 1839, it was something of a shock 
to find that among the vessels which were wrecked on 
Norman's Woe in this storm there was no mention in 
the list of a schooner called the Hesperus. After 
searching the columns of the "Advertiser," the "Eve- 
ning Journal," the "Traveller," and the pigmy "Tran- 
script" of the time, at last the Hesperus was dis- 
covered, but the scene of her misfortune was the un- 
romantic one of Rowe's wharf, on Atlantic Avenue, 



i 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 7 

Boston, not Norman's Woe. The "Transcript's" ac- 
count runs: "Schooner Hesperus (of Gardiner, from 
Pittston) , at anchor in the stream, parted chains and 
drove against ship Wm. Badger^ north side of Rowe's 
wharf, parted her fasts and both drove up against the 
dock. Schooner carried away her bowsprit and stove 
her bow. The ship was badly chafed and stove end of 
gibboon through the upper window of the four-story 
store opposite." 

This storm was one of those terrible "nor'easters" — 
a gale with snow. The most graphic account of it is 
in a letter from Gloucester printed in the "Evening 
Journal," December 17: "It is impossible to say at 
present precisely how many have perished, but all 
agree that the number cannot be less than fifty. The 
northern shore of our harbor presents a scene that 
makes the heart bleed — strewn as it is with wrecks 
and cargoes of twenty or twenty-five vessels, and here 
and there with the lifeless and bleeding bodies of un- 
fortunate mariners." The "Traveller's" account of 
the same date gives the precise material upon which 
Longfellow set his imagination working, barring the 
name of the vessel and the fact that the body lashed 
to the spar was a woman's, not a child's: "From 
Gloucester we learn that of a large number of coasting 
vessels and sloops which had put into Cape Ann Har- 
bor when the storm came on and, for the most part, 
anchored in the outer harbor, twenty went ashore, and 
sixteen of that number went to pieces. Many lives 
were lost, as seventeen bodies had already been washed 
ashore. One of them was reported to be a female, 
who was lashed to the bitts of the windlass of a coast- 
line schooner. The place where most of these vessels 



8 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

struck was a reef of rocks called Norman's Woe." So 
much for dry history! But this famous storm has its 
edda as well as its ballad, for there exists in an obscure 
pamphlet the sermon preached by the Rev. Josiah 
K. Waite, Sunday, December 15, 1839, for the inter- 
ment of eleven of the mariners who perished. The 
text was from Exodus xv, 10: "Thou didst blow with 
thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in 
the mighty waters." Among much high-flown moral- 
izing, of an old-fashioned kind, there is a passage 
describing the event in truly grandiose language, be- 
speaking on the part of the Rev. Mr. Waite an alert- 
ness to the poetic and dramatic possibilities of the 
scene which deserves to be rescued from the oblivion 
of a pamphlet. 

"The wrecks! The wrecks! What more of them? 
How many and what lives have been lost. How many 
bodies have been found? Such have been the sub- 
jects of inquiry and engrossing topics of conversation 
during the past week, at one's firesides and by the 
way. 

"We see them in their freighted barks pursuing 
their course o'er the billowy main, but anon, the sky 
darkens, the wind soars around them, preluding a 
storm; they make our harbor, cast anchor and hope 
here to lie in safety. Alas, delusive hope! They see 
the mighty waves roll on the 'increasing fury of the 
gale'; anxiety, fear, and anguish fill their hearts as 
their vessels yield to the heavy sea as they slip their 
cables or drag their anchors and are borne in fearful 
proximity to this rock-bound shore. We see them in 
imagination, but some who hear me saw them in real- 
ity, and with inexpressible commiseration, when, de- 




w 



i 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 9 

spairing of relief, they ran their vessels amidst the 
angry surf or death-threatening breakers to take 
chance among the fragments of their riven hulls. But 
who can depict the awful scene or imagine the horrors 
that ensued, when having struck the shore, vessel after 
vessel was shattered and broken up by the battering 
strokes of the heavy sea — when one human being after 
another was swept by the swelling waves into the 
raging, foaming deep ; and when others, in attempting 
to gain the strand in boats, were immediately sub- 
merged in the eddying waters, or borne back by the 
reflex of the shore-lashing surf. 

"Night now closes in upon that heart-rending scene 
— and what a night! — in which our rocky promontory 
was shaken by the Storm King to its veiy center — was 
thatj to the horror-stricken victims, among whom the 
angel of death continued his work of destruction and 
slaughter amidst the roaring of winds, the rush of 
waters, the falling of spars, the crash of timbers, and 
the shrieks of eternity-expecting men and women: 

'O I have suffered 
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel. 
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, 
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock 
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd!' '* 

This disaster is but typical of many a wreck that 
occurs along the shores of Cape Ann. The warm 
rock ledges, which Emerson so lovingly describes, fre- 
quently become seething cauldrons of foam, tossed off 
by the mounting breakers, so splendid to look upon 
from above, so terrible to be caught in below. Every- 
one's heart yet stands still at the mention of the Port- 



10 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

land wreck, which occurred in the great blizzard 
of several years ago. The vessel must have gone to 
pieces — lashed to ruin by the fearful fury of the waves 
not far from the spot so fatal in the similar storm of 
1839. The last seen of the Portland was off the 
Thatcher lights — the imposing twin lighthouses, which 
distinguish the tip-end of Cape Ann, while the light 
seen by the skipper's little daughter could have been 
no other than the light on Eastern Point, four or five 
miles to the south. This light is on the side of the bay 
opposite to Norman's Woe. At the head of the bay 
can be seen the quaint old town of Gloucester, cele- 
brated principally in the mind of the summer visitor 
for its group of public buildings and church so placed 
as to give the effect of a cathedral; for its ingenious 
signs, its rattling trolley line running the length of 
the main street, and its fish-flakes. Once upon a time 
it had a lively horse-car line, so reckless in its wild speed 
that the cars were in constant danger of tipping over 
as they dashed round the sharp ciu'ves in the street 
bequeathed, it is said, by the ancestral cows, who were 
the first roadmakers. In the days of the wreck of the 
Hesperus there was neither horse-car nor trolley. The 
"lumbering" stage coach did duty. Indeed, it is not 
so long ago that the last of the stage coaches plodded 
its jolly way from Gloucester to Annisquam and 
Lanesville, to the delectation of those who were for- 
tunate enough to get a seat on top. The suspense of 
the swiftest automobile ride is not to be compared 
with the delicious sense of charmed insecurity incident 
to the top seat of an old-fashioned stage-coach. 

Among the queer signs to be seen there are three 
in particular, never to be forgotten, which bore the 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 11 

legends "Coats and Panze sold here;" "Soda colder 
than Charity;" and "God helps him who helps him- 
self, but God help him who helps himself here." After 
all it is the fish flakes which give distinctive color, not 
to say odor, to the town. They are the symbol of its 
wealth and of its sorrow. Gloucester grew in the lat- 
ter part of the nineteenth century to be the largest 
seat of the fisheries in the world. Cod and mackerel, 
halibuttand herring are among the fishes big and little 
that come to her net. Some of the fishing, especially 
for cod, has been done near shore. The "gay mack- 
erel," as the nonsense rhyme has it, used to be plentiful 
in the neighborhood, but lately an old fisherman told 
me that they now strike for Nova Scotia, eluding the 
fishermen farther south. 

A yam of the year 1833 illustrates what mackerel 
fishing used to be in the neighborhood of Gloucester 
in the good old times. "I well recollect," writes an 
old tar in the "Fisherman's Own Book," "the great 
school of mackerel that struck Middle Bank that year, 
September twenty-second, at ten o'clock at night. 
There were some two hundred sail at anchor, twenty- 
five miles southeast of Eastern Point light, in a dead 
calm, when our skipper sang out: 'Here they are, 
boys.' At the same moment every vessel in the fleet 
commenced the catch. We fished for three days and 
filled everything, even our boat, and stuck on deck 
until we were in fish knee deep. Then a breeze 
springing up, we ran in and packed out two hundred 
and eighty barrels and returned to the bank just as 
the wind left us. We fished three days more, when 
they struck off as suddenly as they had come." 

For much of its fishing, however, long and danger- 



12 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ous voyages are made. Besides the fishing on the 
Grand Banks off Newfoundland, her sails have visited 
far away Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the coasts 
of Labrador. The bringing in of the products of the 
sea is only the first step in the process of the Glouces- 
ter fish industry. After cleaning, the cod and the 
mackerel find their way to the fish-flake to be dried in 
the sun, and one may see them glistening in shining 
rows in the sunlight, or when the sun grows too warm, 
covered with long strips of sail cloth. These sun- 
dried fish are done up later in almost every conceivable 
kind of package — shredded, boneless, in blocks and 
strips, in prepared fish-balls ready for warming, cod- 
liver oil, glue, and all sorts of fertilizers, and are sent 
to markets in all parts of the civilized world. 

This is the Gloucester of to-day ; when Longfellow 
wrote "The Wreck of the Hesperus," it was more 
remarkable for its foreign commerce than for its fish- 
eries, which, for the time being, had fallen into less 
prominence than they had formerly enjoyed. An oc- 
casional "square-rigger" comes sailing into port now 
to remind one of the days when Gloucester had ships 
and barques, brigs and schooners running to the East 
Indies, South America, Europe, Dutch Guiana and 
the West Indies. The products of every clime upon 
the earth have been piled upon her wharves, or stored 
ready for distribution. This extensive trading lasted 
until 1860, when the chief part of it was transferred to 
Boston. A salt trade with Nova Scotia and New- 
foundland partly made up for the transference, 
and the square-rigger of to-day is almost sure to be 
laden with salt packed so tightly in its hold that the 
sailors have literally to mine it out with shovels, a 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 13 

picturesque-enough proceeding, if not quite as 
cleanly as one would like. 

Over a town whose very life depends upon the ex- 
ertions of those who go down to the sea in ships, the 
angel of death ever spreads its brooding wings. As 
some one has said, the history of Gloucester has been 
written in tears. Many a schooner goes out to the 
Grand Banks to fish and never returns. There have 
been periods of time when the average loss a year was 
eight vessels. Besides these disasters to the boats put- 
ting out from Gloucester Harbor, are the wrecks of 
strange boats sailing along the shores, which can be 
either so smiling or so terrible in their cruelty. 

The Gloucester of 1839 was much smaller than the 
Gloucester of to-day, and Eastern Point was the un- 
tenanted garden of paradise which it still was in the 
early days of the present generation. Where else did 
the wild roses blow as they did on Eastern Point? — 
and still do, for that matter, when the syndicate will let 
them, for however much it might try, the most power- 
ful syndicate in the world could not turn Eastern 
Point into a tenanted waste. There may be larger 
wild roses — I myself have seen them — and there may 
be roses of deeper color, but none so lovely, none to 
fill the air with such redolence of perfume. How they 
lodge in every nook and cranny of the rocks, nestling 
like children unafraid between the paws of herding 
elephants! And trooping along with the roses come 
meadow-sweet and deutzia and aromatic bay — blend- 
ing their varied fragrance with that of the rose. 
Where once the flowers held imdisputed sway, the res- 
olute golfer now walks and waits, while roads and cot- 
tages checquer the once lonely landscape. 



14 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Whether Longfellow ever carried out his threat of 
having the "Wreck of the Hesperus" printed in En- 
glish ballad form or not, I do not know. Nor does 
any one know to whom I have put the question. It 
was first printed at the poet's own price of twenty- 
five dollars in the New World. In accepting it, 
Park Benjamin wrote: "Your ballad is grand. En- 
closed are $25:00, the sum you mention, for it, paid by 
the proprietors of the New World, in which glorious 
paper it will resplendently coruscate on Saturday 
next. Of all American journals the New World is 
alone worthy to contain it." 

A few miles down the coast we come upon the scene 
of another of Longfellow's seashore poems, "The 
Fire of Drift Wood," which burned itself into the 
poet's verse on the hearth of the old Devereux farm 
near Marblehead. 

"We sat within the farmhouse old. 

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay. 
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, 
An easy entrance night and day. 

"Not far away we saw the port — 

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, 
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort — 
The wooden houses, quaint and brown." 

The poem may be supplemented by the poet's own 
description of the visit in his journal, September 
twenty-ninth, 1846; 

"A delicious drive with F. through Maiden and 
Lynn to Marblehead, to visit E. W. at the Devereux 
farm by the seaside. Drove across the beautiful sand. 
What a delicious scene! The ocean in the sunshine 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 15 

changing from the silvery hue of the thin waves upon 
the beach, through the lighter and the deeper green, 
to a rich purple in the horizon. We recalled the times 
past and the days when we were at Nahant. The 
Devereux farm is by the sea, some miles from Lynn. 
An old-fashioned farmhouse, with low rooms and nar- 
row windows rattling in the sea-breeze." 

The description of the port and the town, the light- 
house and the fort, would suit a view from Magnolia 
or Gloucester, exactly as well as it does that of Mar- 
blehead, especially as Longfellow was obliged to ad- 
mit, when questioned on the subject, that from the 
Devereux farm could not be seen the view he describes. 
There is, however, a sumptuous bay at Marblehead, 
and nothing could be more bewitching than to watch 
the sta^-ting of a yacht race from the dismantled fort. 
The "strange, old-fashioned town" still answers to 
the description, but it is now enlivened by a trolley 
line. Hand in hand the trolley and the telephone are 
invading all the quiet corners of the earth, making one 
feel, in spite of their convenience, a Ruskin-like irri- 
tation at the cheapening of picturesque spots. 'Of 
course, to reach the Devereux farm one leaves the 
quaint, old-fashioned part of Marblehead with its up- 
to-date shows and dingy lunch rooms, where the sum- 
mer "crowds" amuse and feed themselves upon their 
outings, for the elegant summer residence portion of 
the town on Marblehead Neck. 

Another reminiscence of seashore pastimes which 
might well have for its locale the "South Shore" rather 
than the "North Shore," is to be found in "Seaweed." 
In one of the poetical outbursts characteristic of 
Longfellow's entries in his journals, he exclaims: "I 



16 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

always stop on the bridge; tide-waters are beautiful. 
From the ocean up into the land they go, like messen- 
gers, to ask why the tribute has not been paid. The 
brooks and rivers answer that there has been little 
harvest of snow and rain this year. Floating seaweed 
and kelp is carried up into the meadows, as returning 
sailors bring oranges in bandanna handkerchiefs to 
friends in the country." 

The opening stanzas of this poem give a fine de- 
scription of the gathering of the seaweed from far-off 
lands upon our shores : 

"When descends on the Atlantic 

The gigantic 
Storm- wind of the equinox. 
Landward in his wrath he scourges 

The toiling surges 
Laden with seaweed from the rocks. 

"From Bermuda's reefs; from edges 

Of sunken ledges. 
In some far-off, bright Azore; 
From Bahama, and the dashing. 

Silver-flashing 
Surges of San Salvador; 

"From the tumbling surf, that buries 
The Orkneyan skerries. 
Answering the hoarse Hebrides; 
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting 

Spars uplifting 
On the desolate, rainy seas; — 

"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless main; 
Till in sheltered coves and reaches 

Of sandy beaches, 
All have found repose again." 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 17 

Seaweed from foreign lands adds its wealth to the 
native varieties which may be found in the fascinating 
rock-pools of Cape Ann or Marblehead, but every true 
lover of seaweed knows that Wood's Holl on Cape 
Cod is the great asylum for these waifs of the sea. 

The reason for this is that Wood's Holl is a sort of 
natural museum for seaweed. Its climate is such that 
many beautiful varieties of algse whose habitats are 
found in localities further south, especially those of the 
Jersey coast, grow here with a luxuriance even exceed- 
ing that of their kindred in their native environment. 
Not only the "gigantic storm winds" of the "equinox," 
but the Gulf stream and the Polar currents swirl 
coastwards here, and bring their tribute of beautiful 
and various forms from the bleak regions of the north 
and the summer seas of the south. Scientific rather 
than poetic fame attaches to the place. The great 
naturalist, Agassiz, had a laboratory on an adjacent 
island, and latterly the work of the Wood's Holl bio- 
logical students has become almost a byword for stren- 
uousness. They may be seen balancing themselves 
upon isolated rocks in long rubber boots and short 
skirts, if they are women, dredging for the treasures 
of the sea at the imminent peril of their lives. The 
summer visitors also catch the infection and float their 
little finds out on sheets of "Wattmann's Rough," for 
the delectation of admiring friends come next Christ- 
mas. The scientist studies bit by bit the varied forms 
of algse with his microscope, adding A^ast ranges of 
knowledge to the lore of biology, much of it bearing 
upon the practical needs of life, much of it simply 
taking its place in the realm of the wonderful. The 
summer visitor babbles with lightsome heart over the 



18 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

varied beauty of the flowers of the sea. The poet 
makes the seaweed typical of the poets' songs. Scien- 
tists are somewhat prone to expend their sarcastic hu- 
mors upon both the summer visitor and the poet, yet 
what would the world do without just those elements 
each one has to contribute? A world of knowledge 
would, indeed, be a dismal place without the savor of 
a little light-hearted, ignorant appreciation of nature, 
and a still more dismal place without the poet to re- 
late nature to human truths, as Longfellow does, for 
example, in the latter half of this poem: 

"So when storms of wild emotion 
Strike the ocean 
Of the poet's soul, ere long 
From each cave and rocky fastness. 

In its vastness. 
Floats some fragment of a song. 

"From the far-off isles enchanted. 

Heaven has planted 
With the golden fruit of Truth; 
From the flashing surf, whose vision 

Gleams Elysian 
In the tropic clime of Youth; 

"From the strong Will, and the Endeavor 

That forever 
Wrestles with the tides of Fate; 
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, 

Tempest-shattered, 
Floating waste and desolate; 

"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless heart; 
Till at length in books recorded. 

They, like hoarded 
Household words, no more depart." 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 19 

Longfellow's summer home was for many years at 
Nahant, and quite possibly he made his observations 
upon the seaweed there. One cannot, however, read 
the poem without havmg brought up in the mind 
the picture of Wood's Holl. 

Others of the seaside poems might have been in- 
spired anywhere along the coast where there is an open 
view out to sea. Every one who knows the shore at 
all has watched Jupiter rise in the summer evenings 
over the ocean and trail its path of light in the change- 
ful waters, much less in size but almost as brilliant as 
a moonlight path. 

"Into the ocean faint and far 

Falls the trail of its golden splendor. 
And the gleam of that single star 
Is ever refulgent, soft and tender." 

But the poet adds a beautiful comparison, taking us 
into the fairy-land of myth, with which we ordinary 
mortals may adorn our own cruder mental images : 

"Chrysaor rising out of the sea, 

Showed thus glorious and thus emulous. 
Leaving the arms of Cillirrhoe, 

Forever tender, soft, and tremulous. 

"Thus o'er the ocean faint and far 

Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly — 
Is it a god, or is it a star 

That, entranced, I gaze on nightly?" 

A fisherman's cottage, a little face at the window, 
the mother's shadow "passing to and fro," a storm 
outside, are the very obvious materials of "Twilight" 



20 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

— commonplace, yet replete with the pathos of fisher- 
lives, which the poet touches upon in the last stanzas 
so tenderly that the otherwise unoriginal treatment of 
a theme as old as the hills is brought up to the plane 
of genuine feeling: 

"What tales do the roaring ocean, 
And the night wind, bleak and wild, 
As they beat at the crazy casement, 
Tell the little child? 

"And why do the roaring ocean. 

And the night wind, wild and bleak. 
As they beat at the heart of the mother. 
Drive the color from her cheek?" 

The fisherman's cottage has held a place in liter- 
ature for thousands of years. Theocritus describes 
one occupied by two old fishermen of Sicily which 
would serve for many a tumble-down fisherman's 
abode to be found upon our coast, allowing for the dif- 
ference in building material. These two old men 
"had strown the dry sea-moss for a bed in their wat- 
tled cabin, and there they lay against the leafy wall. 
Beside them were strewn the instruments of their toil- 
some hands, the fishing-creels, the rods of reed, the 
hooks, the sails bedraggled with sea spoil, the lines, 
the weels, the lobster pots woven of rushes, the seines, 
two oars, and an old coble upon props. Here was all 
their toil, here all their wealth. The threshold had 
never a door, nor a watch-dog; all things, all, to them 
seemed superfluity, for Poverty was their sentinel. 
They had no neighbor by them, but ever against their 
narrow cabin gently floated up the sea." I believe I 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 21 

have never seen a fisherman's cottage without a door, 
but windows without glass, lobster pots and dilapi- 
dated sails and fishing tackle too frequently form all 
the wealth of the worthy fisher-folk of our coast who, 
after two thousand years of progress in civilization, 
are little better protected from want and sorrow than 
these old men of Sicily. There are, of course, well- 
to-do fishermen, especially among lobster men, who 
along some portions of the coast own thoroughly well- 
equipped boats and live in neat, well-built cottages. 
It is the isolated fisherman on lonely bits of coast who 
has the hardest time. 

At Newport, Longfellow found a ballad-subject 
worthy of his steel, inspired by the old mill or round 
tower there, said to have been built by the Norsemen. 
What a word is this to conjure with! The subject 
of the Norsemen in America opens up fascinating 
vistas of half mythical history, which every American 
with a particle of romance in his nature would fain 
believe. The very prosaic story, for example, that 
this Norse tower was built by Governor Benedict Ar- 
nold in the year 1676, and was copied from an old 
stone mill still standing in his native town in England, 
sounds so much like the truth that nobody could be 
expected to believe it. How much more inspiring to 
accept this picturesque old tower for what the Danes 
claim it to be — the work of their early ancestors, the 
Norsemen, and to pin our faith in things unprovable 
to Professor Rafn in the "Memoires de la Societe 
Royale des Antiquaires du Nord." 

"There is no mistaking in this instance," he writes, 
"the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of 
the north were constructed, the style which belongs 



22 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

to the Roman or ante-Gothic architecture, and which 
especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused it- 
self from Italy over the whole of the west and north 
of Europe, where it continued to predominate until 
the close of the twelfth century; that style, which 
some authors have, from one of its most striking char- 
acteristics, called the round-arch style, 'the same 
which in England is denominated Saxon and some- 
times Norman architecture. 

"On the ancient structure in Newport there are no 
ornaments remaining which might possibly have 
served to guide us in assigning the probable date of 
its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of 
the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is in- 
dicative of an earlier rather than a later period. 
From such characteristics as remain, however, we can 
scarcely form any other inference than one, in which 
I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old 
Northern architecture will concur, that this buhj)- 

ING WAS erected AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER 

THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. This remark applies, 
of course, to the original building only, and not to 
the alterations that it subsequently received, for there 
are several such alterations in the upper part of the 
building which cannot be mistaken, and which were 
most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern 
times to various uses, for example as the substructure 
of a windmill, and latterly as a hay magazine. To 
the same times may be referred the windows, the fire- 
place and the apertures made above the columns. 
That this building could not have been erected for 
a windmill is what an architect will easily discern." 
The new ballad about which our poet pondered for 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 23 

some time was to be called "The Skeleton in Armor." 
Like an ingenuous school-boy, he exclaims in his 
diary: "The skeleton in armor really exists. It was 
dug up near Fall River, where I saw it some two 
years ago. I suppose it to be the remains of one of 
the old northern sea-rovers, who came to this country 
in the tenth century." 

While riding upon the seashore at Newport in 1838 
the idea of such a ballad came into his head. He 
seems almost immediately to have dipped into the 
Norse Sagas, and waxed so enthusiastic over the 
possibilities of the subject that he contemplated a 
series of ballads, or a romantic poem which should 
tell of the "deeds of the first bold viking who crossed 
to the western world, with storm spirits and devil ma- 
chinery under water." 

The real skeleton's claim to being a Norseman was 
based upon a chemical analysis of his armor which 
showed it to be composed of zinc, tin, copper, lead 
and iron — an amalgamation almost identical with the 
bronze of which ancient Norse armor was made. But 
alas for romance! Most archaeologists with exas- 
perating stubbornness insist that it was only an 
Indian. 

Whether he was a worshiper of Odin or of the 
Great White Hare, he was certainly an interesting 
figure of a skeleton as described in the American 
Monthly of the day, January, 1836, and well worthy 
to be immortalized as the hero of a ballad. He was 
found buried in a sitting posture, the head being about 
one foot below what had been for many years the 
surface of the ground. The body was enveloped in a 
covering of coarse bark of a dark color. Within this 



24* LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

envelope were found the remains of another of coarse 
cloth, made of fine bark and about the texture of a 
manilla coffee bag. On the breast was a plate of 
brass, thirteen inches long, six broad at the upper 
end, and five in the lower. "This plate appears to 
have been cast, and is from one-eighth to three thirty- 
seconds of an inch in thickness. It is so much cor- 
roded that whether or not anything was engraved 
upon it has not yet been ascertained. It is oval in 
form, the edges being irregular, apparently made so 
by corrosion. Below the breastplate and entirely en- 
circling the body, was a belt composed of brass tubes, 
each four and a half inches in length and three-six- 
teenths of an inch in diameter, arranged longitudinal- 
ly and close together, the length of the tube being the 
width of the belt. The tubes are of thin brass, cast 
upon hollow reeds, and were fastened together by 
pieces of sinew. Near the right knee was a quiver of 
arrows. The arrows are of brass, thin, flat and tri- 
angular in shape, with a round hole cut through near 
the base. The shaft was fastened to the head by in- 
serting the latter in an opening at the end of the wood, 
and then tying it with a sinew through the round hole, 
a mode of constructing the weapon never practised by 
the Indians, not even with their arrows of thin shell. 
Parts of the shaft still remain on some of them. 
When first discovered the arrows were in a sort of 
quiver of bark which fell to pieces when exposed to 
the air." 

Very likely the problem of the tower and the skele- 
ton will never be settled, for no matter what excellent 
arguments the romanticist may bring forward, there 
will always be a "last say" on the part of those in- 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 25 

dividuals so constituted that their zeal for truth causes 
them to demolish every really fascinating episode with 
which the historians of the past have enlivened their 
pages. But the arguments are good enough for 
poetry though history cast them out, as Longfellow 
intimates when he remarks: "I will not enter into a 
discussion of the point. It is sufficiently well estab- 
lished for the purpose of a ballad; though doubtless 
many an honest citizen of Newport, who has passed 
his days within sight of the Round Tower, will be 
ready to exclaim with Sancho: 'God bless me! did I 
not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, 
for that it was nothing but a mndmill; and nobody 
would mistake it, but one who had the like in his 
head?' " 

Longfellow's visit to Copenhagen in 1835 must 
have been of value to him in the creation of the un- 
doubted Norse feeling in the poem. Here he had 
actually associated with Rafn, whose opinions in re- 
gard to the Newport tower are infectious. His de- 
scription of this distinguished historian of whom he 
took lessons in Icelandic, is pertinent as perhaps show- 
ing one of the sources leading up to the poem — "a tall, 
thin man with white hair, standing out in all direc- 
tions like a brush. His eyes are always wide open 
like a man who sees a ghost/" 

"Speak, speak, thou fearful guest." 

With Rafn, too, he went to the imiversity library 
in the Round Tower, which is climbed by a spiral 
inclined plane in place of a staircase, and there gazed 
upon a large collection of Icelandic manuscripts. As 



26 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

he was in Copenhagen only two weeks he could not 
have read many of them, but it is much to imbibe an 
atmosphere of old manuscripts. Besides Rafn he 
knew the great scholar, Finn Magnussen, full of the 
lore of his own native Iceland, and doubtless from him, 
drank in great draughts of the northern spirit. 

"Of course I make the tradition myself," Long- 
fellow wrote, and it is of interest to note how far 
away his romantic ballad is from anything in the 
Norse Sagas, which are, strictly speaking, the only 
road to the truth. As the stories of the Norsemen's 
coming to America are told in the Sagas of Eric the 
Red and of Thorfinn Karlsefne, they are convincing 
enough to fill the heart of the romanticist with a proud 
faith in his own belief, however disturbing the contro- 
versies in regard to the localities mentioned in the 
Sagas may be to his inner consciousness. 

More than once in the old Sagas there are allusions 
to the settlements made by the Norsemen upon our 
coast. Vinland was the picturesque name they gave 
it, because of the wild grapes they found growing. 
The most complete accounts of the Norse voyages to 
this delectable land flowing with wild grapes occur in 
two ancient manuscripts, one on vellum, the "Saga of 
Eric the Red," and called by scholars the "Flatey 
Book," because it was long preserved on the island of 
Flatey near Iceland ; and one on paper, founded upon 
an old parchment manuscript, the "Saga of Thorfinn 
Karlsefne." The older of these does not date farther 
back than the twelfth century, for it was only then 
that writing was introduced into Iceland, so that the 
events relating to the discovery of America about 
1000 A. D. were preserved orally for a century or 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 27 

two before they were written down. Under such cir- 
cumstances it is not strange that there should be dis- 
crepancies between the two accounts. These are not, 
however, regarded of sufficient importance to impair 
the authenticity of the story, which has been told in 
Latin by a learned Icelander, Thormodus Thorf aeus. 
His work, based upon the Sagas, and published in 
1705, is now translated into Enghsh by Charles G. 
Herbermann, so that one need not be an Icelandic 
scholar in order to come face to face with the living 
Norsemen who may have built our round tower and 
furnished us with the interesting skeleton. 

In the "Saga of Eric the Red," it is told how 
Bjarne, the son of Her julf sues, was in the habit of 
spending part of his time in Norway, and part of his 
time in Iceland mth his father, and how one day, re- 
turning to Iceland, he found that his father had gone 
to Greenland and settled there with Eric the Red. 
Being a stubborn observer of customs he had once 
adopted, he declared he would spend the winter in his 
father's house in Greenland, though unknown to him 
and recently discovered. He, therefore, set sail, but 
a north wind and darkness took him out of his course. 
Darkness being dispelled, they sailed a whole day and 
night until an unknown land came in view; but, find- 
ing it covered with forests and low hills, they left it. 
For two days more they sailed on with a southeast 
wind, imtil another country came in sight, level and 
full of woods. But the capta'in recognized that this 
could not be Greenland, and, much to the chagrin of 
his sailors, would not land here. Sailing on with a 
southwest wind for three da^^s more, he came to an- 
other land with lofty mountains and white peaks; 



28 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

finding this an island, he passed it by. Four days 
more he sailed, and again saw land, and this time it 
proved to be Greenland. His countrymen, when they 
heard of the lands he had seen, blamed him for lacking 
the ambition to explore them; and Lief, the son of 
Eric, bought Bjarne's ship and set sail with a num- 
ber of companions. 

"The country last seen by Bjarne, first met their 
view, and approaching it, they sent out a boat ; climb- 
ing up mountains covered by perpetual snow, they 
noticed that below, as far as the sea, the land was cov- 
ered with continuous rock, and was therefore utterly 
uninhabitable. Then said Lief: Bjarne's listlessness, 
at least, we have made amends for by exploring this 
country. I shall therefore give it a name to match its 
character, and it shall be called Helluland, that is to 
say, rocky land. Starting thence they found another 
land; landing here, likewise, they found it flat and 
without harbors, here and there green with woods, 
and again covered with white sand. This Lief called 
Markland from its flatness. Sailing thence after a 
short delay, a north wind filling their sails for two 
days, they again saw land along whose northern side 
stretched an island. They brought their ship close up 
to this, and disembarking in clear weather they ob- 
served grass dripping with dew and vying even with 
honey in sweetness. Returning thence to their ship 
they brought it to the sound, which lay between the 
island and the cape, that stretched northward from 
the Mainland:. when sailing past the cape they veered 
toward the West. The water ebbed away and the 
ship struck on the Quicksands, and was separated 
from the sea by great shallows. But so great was 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 29 

their eagerness to see the newly found land, that 
without waiting for the tide, they left the ship behind 
and immediately entered the land by a river which 
flowed from a lake; when the tide rose they brought 
the ship by the river into the lake, and after fastening 
it by casting anchor they established huts on the bank 
and there built commodious winter quarters." 

The Saga goes on to tell how mild the climate 
seemed to these Icelanders, how fertile the soil, and 
how plentiful the salmon and the grapes. They load- 
ed their ship with vines, wheat, and lumber, and 
left Vinland for Greenland with favorable winds, in 
the beginning of spring. On his return, Lief was 
nicknamed Lief the Lucky ; and his brother Thorvald, 
emulous of his adventures, borrowed his ship, engaged 
thirty sailors, and set sail to explore Vinland still fur- 
ther. He spent the winter in fishing, living in Lief's 
winter quarters. In the spring he sent his ship out 
with a party of his sailors to explore throughout the 
summer. They found neither human beings nor wild 
beasts. "The land seemed pleasant, being covered 
with woods at a short distance from the sea, and the 
shore covered with white sand and lined everywhere 
with many islands." They returned in the autumn to 
winter quarters ; and the next summer, steering along 
the northern and eastern shores and turning eastward, 
they entered a bay and brought the ship to harbor by 
the nearest headland "all covered with forests," and 
there they landed, Thorvald exclaiming, "Here it is 
beautiful, and I should like to fix my home." There 
they beheld "three hills on the sand below the head- 
land, and when they came there they saw three boats 
of leather or hides and under each three men." One 



30 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

of them escaped with his boat, but the others they 
seized and killed. Returning then to the headland, 
says the Saga, "a sudden sleep fell upon them all, so 
deep that it could not be shaken off even for the ap- 
pointed watches. It was broken by a voice which 
called out : 'Awake, Thorvald, I beseech thee, with all 
thy companions, if you mean to save your lives: em- 
bark all of you with the greatest speed and depart 
thence.' " These words aroused them only to find the 
whole bay thick with boats. Javelins and arrows 
poured upon them right and left; but "after a short 
hour" the Norsemen scattered their enemies, whom 
they called Skraelings, in contempt; that is to saj'-, 
dwarfs. Thorvald then asked his men if any of them 
had been hurt ; and when they answered none, he told 
them he himself had been wounded in the armpit and 
that it would be fatal, and he bade them carry him 
to the headland where he had intended to settle, and 
to bury him there with a cross at his head and i^ne at 
his feet. His intention had not been frustrated, said 
he, for he would "dwell there for a long time." After 
this, in the next spring, with their ship laden with 
vines and grapes, they returned to Lief in Greenland. 

In the same ship, Thorstein, the third son of Eric 
the Red, then visited Vinland, in order to bring home 
his brother's body. But he was tossed about by 
storms all summer, and carried to Greenland at the 
beginning of winter, where he died of the plague. 

His widow, Gudrid, returning to Lief s house, uiar- 
ried Thorfinn Karlsefne, an Icelander, who was the 
next to journey to Vinland, Gudrid accompanying 
him ; and his sixty sailors he took into partnership, in- 
tending to colonize the new country and to share the 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 31 

profits equally. The cattle they carried thrived ; they 
found much to do in hewing and polishing wood, fish- 
ing, and gathering grapes. A son, Snorre, was born 
to Karlsefne and Gudrid. When the Skraelings came, 
they gave them food in exchange for furs. So all 
went peacefully until one of Karlsefne's servants 
killed a Skraeling, when a battle followed; but al- 
though the Skraelings were again put to flight, 
Karlsefne thought it good to return the next spring 
with his laden ship to Greenland. 

The Saga tells also of a fourth excursion to Vin- 
land, undertaken by a sister of Lief's, Freydis, and 
her husband Thorvard; but it was troubled by quar- 
rels and violence among themselves, and ended in the 
usual return, laden with the booty of the new country. 

Many attempts have been made to settle upon the 
exact localities described in the Sagas. Helluland is 
supposed to be Newfoundland; Markland, Nova 
Scotia; and Vinland, the region round about Cape 
Cod and Rhode Island. And indeed the accoimt 
above quoted of the spot where the Norsemen landed, 
seems to fit in very well with the locality of Mount 
Hope Bay, as any one can see by following the de- 
scription with a map — all but the island north of 
Cape Cod, which, however, may have become joined 
to the mainland since that day. On the other hand, 
Mr. Eben Norton Horsford thinks that the spot 
where the Norsemen landed was up the Charles River, 
and he claims to have proved his point by the discovery 
of the foundation stones and central Norse fireplace of 
the very house where Lief Ericson and his successors 
lived on the banks of the Charles, near Gerry's Land- 
ing. 



32 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Longfellow, like many a primitive myth-maker of 
the long ago past, created his myth to explain the 
facts. If it had been invented before the days of 
printing and had, in consequence, owed its preserva- 
tion to generations of oral tradition, it would have 
become a genuine legend and part of the folk-lore of 
the country. The "ghost" would have been deified; 
there would have been an altar or shrine in the Round 
Tower and religious ceremonies would have been per- 
formed in honor of the god and his consort, and New- 
port society might have had another novelty to add 
to its gayeties. 

One cannot help contrasting this stirring dramatic 
ballad with Whittier's "The Norseman." Whittier's 
poem is a more conscientious piece of work. Like a 
scholar he puts all his doubts of the authenticity of 
the supposed Norse remains, upon which his poem is 
based, into the poem. He is careful to tell you his 
poem is only a vision and devoutly expresses his 
thanks at the end that anything so doubtful should 
have given rise to so pleasant an imaginative flight. 
Even left in the hands of oral tradition his poem could 
never have attained the fascination of a legend, and 
though we know so exactly how this legend of Long- 
fellow's came into existence, yet, because of it, there 
will always cling a mysterious glamor around the 
Newport tower. We cannot pass the spot without 
looking as if we had seen a ghost, without picturing 
to ourselves the life of this ancient Norseman with 
his bride in the tower, and without feeling perfectly 
certain that if we should dig in the cellar we should 
find her skeleton to companion his. 

It is truly to be regretted that Longfellow did not 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 33 

write more poems upon the same subject, as he seemed 
disposed to do, and why did he not carry out fully 
his aspiration to become the balladist of New Eng- 
land? Some of his translations might have been 
spared to this end. 

Two more ballads of his lend their poetic association 
to the coast, "The Phantom Ship" and "Sir Hum- 
phrey Gilbert," at almost the opposite ends of New 
England. 

New Haven is the scene of the first — a versified ac- 
count of a strange experience which befell the good 
people of New Haven in the year 1647; the neighbor- 
hood of the island of Campobello, at the northeastern 
limit of our coast, the scene of the second. The story of 
the phantom ship is, aside from the element of the 
marvelous, one of the tales that give pathos and ro- 
mance to the life of the early settlers. The episode 
occurred in the days when the New Haven colony was 
still governed according to the laws of Moses, which, it 
had agreed by vote, contained the "perfect rule" for 
the government of the state as well as the church. As 
Cotton Mather quaintly describes them: "Behold a 
fourth colony of New England Christians, in a man- 
ner stolen into the world, and a colony, indeed, con- 
stellated with many stars of the first magnitude. The 
colony was under the conduct of as holy and as pru- 
dent and as genteel persons as most that ever visited 
the nooks of America." 

Affairs in the colony had reached a crisis, which the 
colonists tried to tide over by fitting out the "Greate 
Shippe," as it was called, with a cargo to be disposed 
of in London. The cargo consisted of lumber, wheat, 
hides, beaver skins, even silver plate and spoons. It 



34 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

was worth thousands of dollars, and if the voyage was 
successful it would mean a large profit, and if not, the 
loss would be overwhelming. The story, the sequel 
of which was the inspiration for Longfellow's poem, 
is best told in a letter written by James Pierpont to 
Cotton Mather and included by the latter in his 
"Magnaha Christie" : 

"Reverend and Dear Sir — In compliance with your 
desires, I now give you the relation of that apparition 
of a ship in the air, which I have received from the 
most credible, judicious, and curious surviving ob- 
servers of it. 

*'In the year 1647, besides much other lading, a 
far more rich treasure of passengers (five or six of 
which were persons of chief note and worth in New 
Haven) put themselves upon board a new ship built 
at Rhode Island, of about 150 tuns ; but so walty that 
the master (Lamberton) often said she would prove 
their grave. In the month of January, cutting their 
way through much ice, on which they were accom- 
panied with the reverend Mr. Davenport, besides 
many other friends, with many fears, as well as 
prayers and tears, they set sail. Mr. Davenport in 
prayer with an observable emphasis used these words, 
Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these friends in 
the bottom of the sea, they are thine ; save them ! The 
spring following no tidings of these friends arrived 
with the ship from England: New Haven's heart be- 
gan to fail her: this put the godly people on much 
prayer, both publick and private, that the Lord would 
(if it was his pleasure) let them hear what he had 




Old Norse Tower 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 35 

done with their dear friends, and prepare them with 
a suitable submission to his Holy Will. 

"In June next ensuing, a great thunderstorm arose 
out of the northwest, after which (the hemisphere be- 
ing serene) , about an hour before simset, a ship of like 
dimensions with the aforesaid, with her canvass and 
colours abroad (though the wind northerly), ap- 
peared in the air coming up from our harbour's mouth, 
which lyes southward from the town, seemingly with 
her sails filled under a fresh gale, holding her course 
north, and continuing under observation, sailing 
against the wind for the space of half an hour. 

"Many were drawn to behold this great work of 
God ; yea, the very children cried out. There's a brave 
ship! At length, crouding up as far as there is usual- 
ly water sufficient for such a vessel, and so near some 
of the spectators as that they imagined a man might 
hurl a stone on board her, her main-top seemed to be 
blown off, but left hanging in the shrouds: then her 
missen-top: then all her masting seemed blown away 
by the board: quickly after, the hulk brought unto a 
careen, she overset, and so vanished into a smoaky 
cloud, which in some time dissipated, leaving, as every- 
where else, a clear air. The admiring spectators 
could distinguish the several colours of each part, 
the principal rigging, and such proportions as caused 
not only the generality of persons to say, this was 
the mould of their ship, and thus was her tragick end : 
but Mr. Davenport also in publick declared to this 
effect, that God had condescended, for the quieting 
of their afflicted spirits, this extraordinary account of 
his sovereign disposal of those for whom so many ferv- 



36 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ent prayers were made continually. Thus, I am, sir, 
your humble servant, 

"James Pierpont." 

Cotton Mather adds to this weird account: "There 
being yet living so many credible gentlemen, that 
were eye-witnesses of this wonderful thing, I venture 
to publish it for a thing as undoubted as it is won- 
derful." 

One cannot but surmise to-day if it were not a very 
remarkable case of mind transference, the story 
bears such unmistakable marks of sincerity and truth. 
Much more might have been made of this material 
than Longfellow has made ; instead of clothing it with 
richer imagery and suggestion than the original ac- 
count, he has rather diluted it into merely a rhymed 
version, neither so religious nor so full of poetic fervor 
as James Pierpont's letter. 

The ballad of "Sir Humprey Gilbert" is more suc- 
cessful from an artistic point of view. The poet has 
worked up some hints in the original account into a 
fine picture in the opening stanzas: 

"Southward with fleet of ice 
Sailed the corsair Death; 
Wild and fast blew the blast. 

And the east-wind was his breath. 

"His lordly ships of ice 
Glistened in the sun; 
On each side, like pennons wide. 
Flashing crystal streamlets run. 

"His sails of white sea-mist 
Dripped with silver rain; 
But where he passed there were cast 
Leaden shadows o'er the main." 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 37 

The report was made by "M. Haies, gentleman," 
of the Golden Hinde, the only ship of the three that 
sailed from St. John, August 27, 1583, to reach Eng- 
land. With a becoming sense of his importance, he 
calls himself "the principal actour in the same voyage 
who alone continued unto the end, and by God's spe- 
ciall assistance returned home with his retinue safe 
and entire." In describing the wreck of the Delight, 
which was not Sir Humphrey Gilbert's ship, he says : 
"And betimes in the morning we were altogether 
runne and folded in amongst flats and sands, amongst 
which we found shoale and deepe in every three or 
foure shippes length, 'after wee began to sound: but 
first we were upon them unawares, untill Master Cox 
looking out, discerned (in his judgement) white 
cliff es, crying (land) withal, though we could not 
afterward descrie any land, it being very likely the 
breaking of the sea white, which seemed to be white 
cliff es, through the haze and thicke weather." 

It seems probable that the white cliffs were ice- 
bergs. At any rate Longfellow's "fleet of ice" and 
"ships of ice" were undoubtedly suggested by the 
white cliffs Master Cox saw. To continue the story 
in the extraordinary English of M. Haies, gentle- 
man: "By that time we had brought the Islands of 
Azores south to us, yet wee then keeping much to 
the north, untill we had got into the height and eleva- 
tion of England : we met with very f oule weather, and 
terrible seas, breaking short and high Pyramid wise. 
The reason whereof seemed to proceed either of hilly 
grounds high and low within the sea (as we see hills 
and dales upon the land) upon which the seas do 
mount and fall : or else the cause proceedeth of diver- 



38 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

sitie of windSj shifting often in sundry points: al 
which having power to move the great Ocean, which 
again is not presently settled, so many seas do en- 
counter together, as there had been diversity of 
windes. However it cometh to passe men which all 
their life time had occupied the Sea, never saw more 
outragious Seas. We had also upon our maine yard 
an apparition of a little fire by night, which seamen 
do call Castor and Pollux. Monday, the ninth of 
September, in the.af ternoon, the Frigat was near cast 
away, oppressed by waves, yet at that time recovered : 
and giving forth signes of joy, the Generall sitting 
abaft with a booke in his hand, cried out unto us in 
the Hinde (so oft as we did approach within hearing) 
'We are as neare to heaven by sea as by land.' Reit- 
erating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier, 
resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testifie he was. 

"The same Monday night, about twelve of the 
clocke, or not long after, the Frigat being ahead of us 
in the Golden Hinde, suddenly her lights were out, 
whereof, as it were in a moment, we lost the sight, and 
withal our watch cryed, the Generall was cast away, 
which was so true. For in that moment the Frigat 
was devoured and swallowed up of the sea. Yet still 
we looked out all that night and ever after, untill we 
arrived upon the coast of England : Omitting no small 
sail at sea, unto which we gave not the tokens betweene 
us, agreed upon, to have perfect knowledge of each 
other, if we should at any time be separated." 

From this account of an eye-witness it will be seen 
that the poet has allowed himself to depart consid- 
erably. He describes Sir Humphrey's wi'eck to have 
occurred three days eastv/ard from Campobello, in- 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 39 

stead of near the Azores twelve days after the little 
fleet left St. John. The idea of Sir Humphrey Gil- 
bert's ship drifting down to the Spanish main in the 
clasp of icebergs is certainly picturesque. Curiously 
enough, with more prosaic material than he had in the 
"Phantom Ship," the poet has made of this the more 
fanciful poem. The icebergs with Sir Humphrey in 
their cold embrace finally disappear in the Gulf 
stream: 

"Southward through day and dark, 
They drift in close embrace, 
With mist and rain, to the Spanish main, 
Yet there seems no change of place. 

"Southward, forever southward. 
They drift through dark and day, 
And like a dream, in the Gulf stream 
Sinking, vanish all away." 

It was also a clever touch to use the euphonious 
name of Campobello as the starting point of Gilbert, 
instead of St. John. 

One may to-day take a crazy narrow-gauge train 
that sways from side to side as though it might jump 
the track at any moment and journey from St. John 
down to Calais, and there take a steamer down the 
beautiful St. Crois river to Eastport, and so get a 
view of this charming island of Campobello which lies 
some little distance out from Eastport, washed by 
twenty- or thirty-foot tides. It is not unusual for 
the little steamboats to be stranded on the sands at 
low tide when attempting to make a landing, even to- 
day, when all the tricks of sand and tide are known. 



40 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

No spot on the coast is so closely associated with 
Longfellow himself as Portland, the city of his birth 
and childhood, and often visited by him in his later 
life. The house in which he was born was but a 
hand's throw from the sea. The door-yard, the road, 
and a little strip of beach — that was all ! The dwell- 
ing, once in a fine neighborhood, is now a tenement 
house, while the beach is given over to the tracks of the 
Grand Trunk Railroad. Only one year of his life 
was spent in this close proximity to the sea, but that 
was doubtless enough to implant in him his love of it. 
Besides, the home in which the Longfellows settled 
though removed from the shore, had a beautiful sea 
view. "I prefer the seaside to the country," he used 
to say; "the idea of liberty is stronger there." 

We have already seen his own fine description of 
Portland harbor, a haven for ships not surpassed in 
spaciousness and beauty by any along the coast. 
Sailing into this harbor to-day one is struck with far 
other craft than the market boats of which he speaks. 
Gigantic men of war in their peaceful garb of white, 
may often be seen standing about like sentinels to 
usher in the humble side-wheeler, which bears the sum- 
mer tourist on his way to his destination. Awesome 
and beautiful objects, if it were not for a melancholy 
bit of statistics which always gets possession of one's 
thoughts to the effect that the nation squanders more 
money upon one of these engines of destruction than 
it would take to build a college of the size of Harvard. 
So much more important is destruction than construc- 
tion in the policy of nations. Graceful sail- 
ing yachts or chic steam yachts, bedecked with 
trappings of burnished brass, like Gibson girls in 



/ 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 41 

party array, make gay the scene, and these invariably 
induce philosophical reflections upon modern types of 
wealth. The six-masted schooner with its noble pro- 
portions and its evident intention of doing good work, 
brings unalloyed pleasure into the scene, and finally 
the "power boats," whose frail little bodies seem in 
danger of being rent asunder by their titanic asthmatic 
puffings, rush about performing in their cheering 
manner all needful tasks. What a stride from the 
days when Longfellow gazed upon the peaceful scene 
to the present, with its immeasurable increase of 
beauty on the one hand, and on the other its ''strang- 
ling" problems. 

Though not a proven fact, it seems probable that 
the inspiration for his poem "The Building of the 
Ship" arose from memories of shipbuilding in Port- 
land. 

His aunt, Mrs. Stevenson, a sister of his father's, 
and her husband, Mr. Samuel Stevenson, lived in the 
house where the poet was born, the event having oc- 
curred when Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow were on a visit 
to their relatives. Next to this house there was a 
large yard, which was afterwards converted into a 
ship yard, where many ships were built and launched. 
There were besides ship yards all along the harbor 
front, for Portland was a great shipbuilding center, 
and ship-launchings must have been frequently wit- 
nessed by the young Longfellow. It is also worthy 
of note that he was actually in Portland for a time 
while he was brooding over this poem, having been 
called there by his father's death. That his observa- 
tions upon the launching of ships had been accurate, is 
proved by his own note on a point which he feared 



42 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

might call out criticism. He writes: "I wish to an- 
ticipate a criticism on this passage by stating that 
sometimes, though not usually, vessels are launched 
fully rigged and sparred. I have availed myself of 
the exception, as better suited to my purposes than the 
general rule; but the reader will see that it is neither 
a blunder nor a poetic license." To his own authority 
he adds that of a friend in Portland who writes: "In 
this State and also, I am told, in New York, ships are 
sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to save 
time or to make a show. There was a fine large ship 
launched last summer at Ellsworth, fully rigged and 
sparred. Some years ago a ship was launched here, 
with her rigging, spars, sails and cargo aboard. She 
sailed the next day and was never heard of again! I 
hope this will not be the fate of your poem!" 

The fate of the poem has been, as every one knows, 
a particularly fortunate one. It has been a favorite, 
not only with people in general, but, appearing at the 
time it did, it was an inspiration because of its closing 
lines — 

"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great," 

to many who felt the approaching darkness that was 
one day to overwhelm their country in the horrors of 
civil war. 

Never to be forgotten is the poet's own account in 
his diary, February twelfth, 1850, of Mrs. Kemble's 
reading of this poem: 

"In the evening Mrs. Kemble read before the Mer- 
cantile Library Association, to an audience of more 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 43 

than three thousand, portions of 'As You Like It;' 
then 'The Building of the Ship.' Standing out upon 
the platform, book in hand, trembling, palpitating 
and weeping, and giving every word its true weight 
and emphasis, she prefaced the recital by a few words 
to this effect: that when she first saw the poem, she 
desired to read it before a Boston audience: and she 
hoped she would be able to make every word audible 
to that great multitude." Mr. Samuel Longfellow 
remarks upon this in his Life of the poet: "But it is 
to be suspected that the vast multitude was stirred to 
its depths not so much by the artistic completeness of 
the rendition as by the impassioned burst with which 
the poem closes, and which fell upon no listless ears 
in the deep agitation of the eventful year 1850." 

An even greater tribute was paid to the poem by 
President Lincoln, as related in an article by Noah 
Brooks in Scribner's Monthly for August, 1879. 
Finding the President one day attracted by these clos- 
ing stanzas which he had used in a political speech, he 
recited for him, at his request, nearly the whole poem. 
He began with the description of the launch of the 
ship and repeated it to the end. "As he listened," 
writes Mr. Brooks, "to the last lines his eyes filled 
with tears, and his cheeks were wet. He did not 
speak for some minutes, then finally said with sim- 
plicity: 'It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men 
like that.' " 

The "Lighthouse" on the rocky ledge that "runs 
far in to the sea" might stand for many a lighthouse 
on our well-lit coast. But from the fact that the 
poem was written in November, 1847, after Longfel- 
low had spent a summer in Westport, near Portland 



44 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Harbor, makes it altogether likely that he had a Port- 
land lighthouse in mind. He tells in his journal of 
an expedition to two neighboring lighthouses: "We 
made up a little party and drove to the Cape. Visited 
the Bowery where there is no bower. Thence went 
to the two lighthouses. I climbed to the top of the 
revolving one, and found it as neat as a new pin. 
Below are oil jars large enough to hold the forty 
thieves." 

Though these are neither of them the lighthouse of 
the poem, the visit doubtless served to turn his mind to 
the subject for a poem. 

In his "Early Haunts of Longfellow," George 
Thornton Edwards attaches the poem to the venerable 
Portland Head Light on Cape Elizabeth, said to be 
the oldest lighthouse on the Atlantic Coast. He 
writes: "As one stands in the front windows of the 
Wadsworth-Longfellow house to-day and sees the 
brick walls of the buildings across the way, it is hard 
to realize that from these windows once stretched a 
view of surpassing loveliness. The bay, the islands, 
the cape shore, and the light at Portland Head were 
all plainly visible from the windows of the poet's 
sleeping room; and from these windows he could 

'See the tides 
Upheaving, break unheard' 

along the foot of the lighthouse some three miles 
away.'* 

It is on record that "as early as 1785 the represen- 
tative from the town was instructed to urge ui)on the 
government of Massachusetts the erection of a light- 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 45 

house at the mouth of this (Portland) harbor. But 
from the poverty of the country nothing was done for 
a year or two. At length the work was undertaken, 
but proceeded slowly until the organization of the 
general government. In August, 1790, Congress ap- 
propriated $1,500 to finish the work, and it was com- 
pleted within five months of that time." 

Originally the stonework was seventy-two feet 
high, and the lantern fifteen feet. But it was found 
to be too high, and, twenty years after it was built, 
twenty feet were taken off. In the poet's day, one 
had to thread one's way through brambles and a 
tangled growth of bushes to reach the light, but to- 
day the approach is along smooth roadways and 
through the well-kept parade grounds of Fort 
Williams. 

Turning to the journal we find such charming rec- 
ollections of this Portland summer by the sea as the 
following: "We drove to the Verandah at Oak Grove 
in Westbrook, where we propose to inhale the Sea 
for six weeks. A delicious place, a promontory front- 
ing the entrance to the harbor, crowned with a grove 
of oaks. 

"How lovely the view of the harbor, the pearly sea 
with its almost irresistible attraction drawing me into 
it. A whole fleet of vessels in the horizon, looking in 
the vapory distance like the spires and towers of a 
great city. 

"The rain is over, the tide is rising. One by one 
the banks of sea-shells and the brown weed-covered 
rocks have disappeared, and the ships have sailed 
away from the mouth of the harbor, and the city by the 
sea has simk into its depths." 



46 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Again : "We leaned for a while on the wooden rail, 
and enjoyed the silvery reflection on the sea, making 
sundry comparisons. Among other thoughts we had 
this charming one — that the whole sea was flashing 
with this heavenly light, though we saw it only in a 
single track ; the dark waves are the dark providences 
of God ; luminous, though not to us ; and even to our- 
selves in another position." 

The "Verandah" mentioned here was a famous 
summer hotel, when Longfellow visited it. There is 
now a marine hospital upon the spot where it stood, 
yet the surroundings have retained much of their old- 
time loveliness. An old advertisement of the hotel, 
printed by Mr. Edwards, witnesses to the charm and 
desirability of the place as only an advertisement may 
do: 

"The Verandah 

"At Oak Grove, two miles from Portland, Me., a 
new and splendid establishment, built expressly for a 
first-class hotel and watering place, is now opened 
for the season. 

"It stands on a bold peninsula bounded by Pre- 
sumpscot River and by Casco Bay, whose hundred 
green islands breaking the surface of the ocean waters, 
are fully in sight. For natural beauty and richness 
and variety of scenery it is not surpassed. 

"Omnibi and carriages at the depot and the steam- 
boats to take passengers to the Verandah for 25c. per 
seat. It is orue of the most desirable places of re- 
sort in the country for the invalid, the lover of fine 
scenery and pure air." 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 47 

One more entry from the diary, this time in verse, 
will help to round out the picture. The lines were 
inspired by the tides flowing under Martin's Point 
Bridge, near the Verandah, and have been included 
in the definitive edition of the poet's works : 



"O faithful, indefatigable tides, 
That evermore upon God's errands go, — 
Now seaward, bearing tidings of the land, 
Now landward, bearing tidings of the sea, — 
And filling every firth and estuary. 
Each arm of the great sea, each little creek, 
Each thread and filament of water courses, 
Full with your ministrations of delight, 
Under the rafters of this wooden bridge 
I see you come and go ; sometimes in haste 
To reach your journey's end, which being done 
With feet unrested ye return again, 
And recommence the never-ending task: 
Patient, whatever burdens ye may bear, 
And fretted only by the impending rocks." 

The poem most thoroughly identified with Port- 
land is "My Lost Youth," wherein the Portland of 
the poet's boyhood lives again in imagination. Much 
of the sea comes into it : 



'Often I think of the beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town. 
And my youth comes back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still: 
*A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 



48 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

*'I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, 
And catch in sudden gleams 
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, 
And Islands that were the Hesperides 

Of all my boyish dreams. 

And the burden of that old song, 
It murmurs and whispers still: 
'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

''I remember the black wharves and the slips, 
And the sea-tides tossing free; 
And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips. 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still: 
'A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 

"I remember the bulwarks by the shore. 
And the fort upon the hill; 
The sunrise gun with its hollow roar. 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er. 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 
Throbs in my memory still : 
'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' " 

These pleasant visions of a summer along our coast, 
with the poet to cast an imaginative glamor upon 
many a favorite spot, may best be brought to a close 
by one or two more glimpses through his own poetic 
every-day eyes at the sea as he saw it at Nahant and 
Newport. At Nahant he writes: "At length over 
the glorious beach we came, the surf mowing great 
swaths of foam along the sands, and the loveliest colors 



THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 49 

playing over the surface of the water, from the sil- 
ver shallows, through the green middle space, out to 
the blue of the far-off ocean." 

"One of the prettiest sights of Nahant is the cows 
going over the beach at sunset, from cow-sites of 
Nahant to the cow-yards of Lynn. Their red hides 
and the reflection in the wet sand light up the gray 
picture of the sky and surge. Has it ever been 
painted?" 

"A delightful stroll with F. on the cliff watching the 
sails in sunshine and in shadow, and our own shadows 
on far-off rocks." 

"We had a charming drive along the beach this aft- 
ernoon. A phantom ship flashed back the setting sun, 
and seemed of pearl floating on a pearly sea. The 
whole scene was too lovely to be painted in words; 
and guarding it, lay, like a tawny lion, the brown, sun- 
lighted island of Egg Rock." 

At Newport in 1852 he writes; "How beautifully 
the soft sea spreads its broad-feathered fans upon the 
shore! In the afternoon we went and sat by the sea 
under the cliff, and watched the breakers and the sails, 
and thought the rocks looked like the Mediterranean 
shore, and that the Italian language would sound well. 
Here, in truth, the sea speaks Italian; at Nahant it 
speaks Norse." 

It must have been these softer, more Southern seas 
that filled the poet's mind when he wrote "The Secret 
of the Sea," with its recollections of a Spanish ballad: 

"Ah! What pleasant visions haunt me 
As I gaze upon the sea! 
All the old romantic legends, 
All mv dreams, come back to me. 



50 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"Sails of silk and ropes of sendal, 
Such as gleam in ancient lore ; 
And the singing of the sailors, 
And the answer from the shore! 

"Most of all, the Spanish ballad 
Haunts me oft, and tarries long, 
Of the noble Count Arnaldos 
And the sailor's mystic song." 



UNDER THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 



^^The sun goes down, and over all 
These barren reaches by the tide 

Such unelusive glories fall, 

I almost dream they yet will bide 
Until the coming of the tide. 

*'And yet I know that not for us. 
By any ecstasy of dream. 

He lingers to keep luminous 

A little while the grievous stream. 
Which frets, uncomforted of dream — 

"A grievous stream, that to and fro 
Althrough the fields of Acadie 

Goes wandering, as if to know 
Why one beloved face should be 
So long from home and Acadie. 
***** 

"The night has fallen, and the tide — 
Now and again comes drifting home. 

Across these aching barrens wide, 
A sigh like driven wind and foam: 
In grief the flood is bursting home." 

Bliss Carman. 



II 



MY first view of Grand Pre was afar off from 
the little village of Del Haven on the op- 
posite shore of the Basin of Minas; and 
owing to the wonderful fascination of this western 
shore of the basin, it was some time before the drive 
of a few miles, partly along the course of the Gas- 
pereau, was made for the closer inspection of Grand 
Pre. One has the sensation of being on the planet 
Mars, when in this region of Nova Scotia, the tone 
of the beach and shores is so unmitigatedly red. Then, 
too, the shrinking of the water in the basin twice 
a day to a width of some five miles less than it is at 
high tide parallels very well the strange behavior of 
the canals on Mars as it is described by some astron- 
omers. Who knows but the whole of Mars may be 
formed out of soft red sandstone like the foundations 
of Cape Blomidon? The banks all along this west- 
ern side, limiting the encroachment of the tide, look 
as if they had been carefully cut down with a huge 
knife, so straight up and doAvn are the lines; per- 
haps the giant Glooskap, whose home in mythical 
times was on Cape Blomidon, may have had a hand 
in it. These banks vary in height, but are never very 
lofty, though the land above them is undulating, end- 
ing in the ridge, which at length forms the imposing 
and peculiarly beautiful Cape Blomidon, five hundred 

63 



54 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

and seventy feet in height, with its red sandstone 
walls and battlemented top of gray trap rock, and its 
growths of solemn firs. Red, red everywhere are 
these banks, and at their base, as at the base of Blomi- 
don itself, stretches the red beach, as smooth and seem- 
ingly as level as a floor, which at low tide loses itself 
in a distance of two miles. In reality, this beach must 
slant considerably, for on the northern shore of the 
basin there is a pier at Parsborough, sixty feet in 
height, with landings at several stages to accommo- 
date the phenomenal rise of the tide. The tale is told 
at Del Haven that if one were at the outermost edge 
of the beach when the tide turned, he could not walk 
fast enough to keep from being overwhelmed by it, 
so rapidly does it rise. This hardly seems believable, 
at least along this shore, where the tide does not come 
up with a rush of big waves and breakers ; on the con* 
trary, the edge of the water steadily advances with a 
quiet little trickling sound, for all the world as if the 
basin were a tank being filled from a faucet. No 
one, however, had the temerity to try the experiment 
of following the water down to the turn of the tide. 
What fierceness the tides of the Basin of Minas are 
capable of, shows itself on the north shore, where the 
surf rolls in over a curving beach, while the narrow 
passage from the basin out to the Bay of Fundy, 
north of Cape Blomidon, is a tossing mass of waters 
forming a powerful rip, through which vessels dare 
not go except in the direction in which the tide is 
running. 

The magic of low tide when it occurs near sunset 
in the glowing afternoon light, is hardly describable 
in words. Patches of dampness left on the beach by 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 55 

the receding tide refract the Hght in such a manner 
that the whole atmosphere becomes radiant with melt- 
ing rainbow tints, while the shadows falling on the 
banks are of a deep wine-color, with elusive perspec- 
tives of intensity to the depths of which the eye hardly 
seems able to penetrate. Blomidon looms sombre in 
the background, its crest alone lit up by the rays of 
the departing sun ; and perhaps far out on a dike, still 
in a flood-tide of sunlight, maj^ be seen an old-fash- 
ioned ox-team with hay wagon attached, standing 
peacefully, even statue-like, in the still calm of that 
mystical afternoon light, the one bit of life in the 
scene being a boy who tosses the hay into the wagon — 
a fairy in blue- jeans, a scarlet sweater and a wide, yel- 
low hat. 

The charm of the place is greatly enhanced by the 
mythical lore that attaches to it. Here Glooskap en- 
tered into a combat with the Great Beaver. For his 
weapons he had huge masses of rocks. These he 
pitched at his enemy ; they fell into the water and be- 
came Five Islands. Around these missiles of the 
god, mysterious lights and shadows constantly hover. 
Once there was a stupendous dam at this point, which 
caused the flooding of the Cornwallis Valley. The 
Great Beaver was also responsible for this. But 
Glooskap, whose might was not surpassed even by 
that of the great Norse giant Thor, bent the dam into 
its present shape, forming Cape Blomidon to stand 
sentinel over the Basin of Minas as it rushes out 
through the channel to the Bay of Fundy, and Cape 
Split, a gigantic headland of bare rock with a yawn- 
ing chasm dividing it from top to bottom, the fiercer 
sentinel to guard the point where the channel meets 



56 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

the Bay of Fundy. Cape Split has its tragedy. It 
is whispered a man was once swallowed there by the 
Great Beaver, or rather, that, fired with reckless am- 
bition, he tried to scale its dizzy height and never 
again was heard of. 

It was Glooskap, too, who flung gems about in 
such profusion on Cape Blomidon. Though he car- 
ried some away, there are still quantities left for the 
tourist and the collector of specimens. But there is 
one jewel which no one can obtain possession of. This 
is the "Witch's Stone," sometimes called the "Dia- 
mond of Cape Blomidon" or the "Eye of Glooskap." 

This is a great gem, which tradition says is some- 
times seen at night shining with miraculous radiance 
out of the dark face of Blomidon. The story comes 
down out of the most impenetrable mists of the past. 
It is said that of the many who have sought the stone, 
certain ones from time to time have found it — ^but to 
their own undoing. The possession of the mystic gem 
has always wrought irremediable misfortune to its 
possessor ; and the gem itself has always found its way 
by sorcery back to the brow of the mount. 

All sorts of minerals abound, some of them semi- 
precious, on Blomidon, Partridge Island and the cliffs 
near Parsborough. These latter as you approach 
them from the water, especially when the sun is shin- 
ing upon them, might be gates of jasper and chal- 
cedony leading to some heavenly city, so brilliant is 
the coloring. No one comes away from Blomidon 
without a geode or two, with clustering amethysts 
imbedded in its stony interior. These may be 
bought or picked up at Amethyst Cove, according to 
the taste or energy of the visitor. 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 57 

Though the giant form of Glooskap often seems to 
take shape in the mists that hang over Blomidon, he is 
no longer there. He departed at the appearance of 
the white man, or according to an Algonquin legend : 
"When the ways of men and beasts waxed evil they 
greatly vexed Glooskap, and at length he could no 
longer endure them, and he made a rich feast by the 
shore of the great Lake Minas. All the beasts came 
to it, and when the feast was over, he got into a great 
canoe, and the beasts looked after him till they saw 
him no more. And after they ceased to see him, they 
still heard his voice as he sang; but the sounds grew 
fainter and fainter in the distance, and at last they 
wholly died away; and then deep silence fell on them 
all, and a great marvel came to pass, and the beasts, 
who had till now spoken but one language, were no 
longer able to understand each other, and they fled 
away, each his own way, and never again have they 
met together in council. Until the day when Gloos- 
kap shall return to restore the Golden Age, and make 
men and animals dwell once more together in amity 
and peace, all Nature mourns. And tradition says 
that on his departure from Acadia the Great Snowy 
Owl retired to the deep forests, to return no more imtil 
he could come to welcome Glooskap; and in those 
sylvan depths the owls even yet repeat to the night 
Koo-koo-skoos! which is to say in the Indian tongue, 
*Oh, I am sorry! Oh, I am sorry!* And the Loons, 
who had been the huntsmen of Gloosgap, go restlessly 
up and down through the world, seeking vainly for 
their master, whom they cannot find, and wailing sad- 
ly because they find him not." 

When one finally makes up one's mind to leave all 



58 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

this loveliness and drive from Del Haven to Grand 
Pre, what other loveliness is the reward! What won- 
derful orchards ! Apples of rare kinds that never find 
their way to the American market because of the cus- 
toms duties; fields of wheat and oats and rye which 
exhale the richness of the earth. One may drive to 
the top of Blomidon and look down upon all this beau- 
tiful garden as it lies far down below in squares of 
many tints, but when Grand Pre is the destination, 
he may either enter into the heart of the valley of the 
Gaspereau and loiter amid its orchards along his 
happy way or drive by the upland road above the val- 
ley, where this tiny but celebrated stream meanders, 
and from time to time catch glimpses of the surround- 
ing wealth of garden land. When the Gaspereau is 
met on the way to Grand Pre, it has become a gentle 
stream flowing through a peaceful valley of alluvial 
meadows, the mountains, which guard it so closely 
at its birth, having drawn off to give it free scope to 
follow its own will, which is of the mildest. The river 
starts in a little lake of the same name in the south- 
western part of Horton Township. Not having had 
the good fortune to follow it along the whole of its 
course, I borrow a graphic description of it from Hali- 
burton: "For the first few miles and as it flows 
through the settlement of Canaan, there is a wild 
beauty and grandeur in the scenery. It rushes impet- 
uously between two lofty and almost perpendicular 
hills — its bed resembling a chasm made in the heart of 
the mountain by some violent convulsion of nature. 
From this place the course of the stream is so serpen- 
tine that, within a small space, the horizon is bounded 
on all sides by the hills, that in their circumference re- 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 59 

cede from the river, which, in this deep recess, appears 
like a small central point. Here a narrow footpath 
winds down the precipitous steep, by which the trav- 
eler with much exertion and some danger of a more 
rapid descent, reaches the margin of the stream, where 
a scene of indescribable beauty is presented to view. 
As the river pursues its course the hills become more 
accessible and admit of cultivation." 

When finally the valley broadens out it becomes a 
most peaceable little river, and when it nears the Basin 
of Minas its waters mingling with the tides form salt 
marshes. Bliss Carman has pictured all the beauty in 
his fine poem "The Valley of the Gaspereau," v/ith 
the loving touch of one who was born in this fruitful 
land: 

"The crowds of black spruces in tiers from the valley 

below. 
Ranged round their sky-roofed coliseum, mount row 

after row. 
How often there, rank above rank, they have watched 

for the slow 
Silver-lanterned processions of twilight — the moon's 

come and go! 
How often as if they expected some bugle to blow, 
Announcing a bringer of news they were breathless 

to know, 
They have hushed every leaf — to hear only the mur- 
murous flow 
Of the small mountain river sent up from the valley 

below ! 

iii. il£. ik. ^ iiiL ^le. ik. 

~ ^ ^T^ T^f ^ vfr Tf^ 

"Then the orchards that dot, all in order, the green 

valley floor. 
Every tree with its boughs weighed to earth, like a 

tent from whose door 



60 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Not a lodger looks forth, — ^yet the signs are there, gay 

and galore, 
The great ropes of red fruitage and russet, crisp snow 

to the core. 
Can the dark-eyed Romany here have deserted of yore 
Their camp at the coming of frost? Will they seek 

it no more? 
Who dwells in St. Eulalie's village? Who knows 

the fine lore 
Of the tribes of the apple trees there on the green 

valley floor? 

"Who indeed? From the blue mountain gorge to the 
dikes by the sea. 

Goes that stilly wanderer, small Gaspereau; who 
but he 

Should give the last hint of perfection, the touch that 
sets free 

From the taut string of silence the whisper of beau- 
ties to be? 

The very sun seems to have tarried, turned back a 
degree. 

To lengthen out noon for the apple folk here by the 
sea." 

Grand Pre may also be reached by the "crack" 
train of Nova Scotia, "The Flying Blue Nose." This 
train, like Alice-in- Wonderland's jam, is only to be 
had every other day — at least, such was the case a 
few years ago. The hour at which it left Yarmouth 
had furthermore to be carefully computed from the 
time-table, one's own watch, and the watch of some 
obliging inhabitant of the country, for the time-table 
represented Washington time, one's own watch Bos- 
ton or New York time as the case might be, while 
the inhabitant's watch was what it really was o'clock. 
There doubtless are people who have traveled all 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 61 

the way from Yarmouth to Grand Pre in the "Fly- 
ing Blue Nose," so they may know how or where the 
transformation occurs, for certain it is that this train 
which starts from Yarmouth a tolerably well-ap- 
pointed passenger train, often arrives at the little sta- 
tion in Grand Pre a train of freight cars with only 
a half-passenger booth at the end of the last car. 

The shores of the Basin of Minas at Grand Pre are 
similar to those near Del Haven, though not by any 
means so picturesque, probably because of the greater 
extent of dike land, which gives the effect of endless 
flat meadows. One misses, too, the pervading so- 
lemnity of Blomidon, now miles away, while the 
atmospheric effects are not in any way comparable 
with those on the other side of the basin. 

Nothing of the ancient Acadian village is left, but 
devout tourists take much delight in the sites pointed 
out to them as marking some street or old homestead. 
The smithy of Basil Lajeunesse is distinguished by 
an old tree, and stony hollows in the ground do duty 
as landmarks for the house of Father Felician and for 
the village church, so famous in Acadian history. 
There is an avenue of hoary willows said to have been 
planted by the French that look as if they might in- 
deed have waved above the heads of Evangeline and 
Gabriel, and most important of all there is Evan- 
geline's Well with an old-fashioned well-sweep, from 
which the tourists may be seen slicing off little chips 
as mementos, unaware of the fact that the well-sweep 
needs to be renewed every few years owing to the 
ravages of these same tourists. This is all there is to 
tell of the once flourishing French settlement. A lit- 
tle bit sad the land seems, in spite of its strange beauty, 



62 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

as if the air still vibrated to the wailing and woe of 
the women as they saw perhaps a father, a husband or 
a son marched off for embarkation upon vessels which 
were not to hold themselves. Lieutenant Winslow 
seems to have been given instructions to keep the in- 
habitants of villages, and the members of families to- 
gether. According to one account, however, the men 
were embarked first, a method which would certainly 
make it difficult to insure the keeping of families to- 
gether. Besides, we have the word of the Acadians, 
who wrote from Philadelphia to King George asking 
redress for their grievances. In this letter they de- 
clare the transporting was done in so much haste that 
"parents were separated from children, and husbands 
from wives, some of whom have not to this day met 
again. . . . 

"And even those amongst us who had suffered deep- 
ly from your Majesty's enemies, on account of their 
attachment to your Majesty's government, were 
equally involved in the common calamity, of which 
Rene Leblanc, the notary public, is a remarkable in- 
stance. He was seized, confined and brought away 
among the rest of the people, and his family, consist- 
ing of twenty children, and about one hundred and 
fifty grandchildren, were scattered in different col- 
onies, so that he was put on shore at New York with 
only his wife and two youngest children, in an infirm 
state of health, from whence he found three more of 
his children at Philadelphia, where he died without 
any more notice being taken of him." There is some- 
thing touching as well as naive in the spectacle of 
the personal devotion of Rene Leblanc and all his chil- 
dren and grandchildren, to the number of a hundred 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 63 

and seventy, and possibly in this instance there may 
be some excuse for the authorities not being able to see 
that the whole family was kept together. 

Longfellow has presented a kindly picture of the 
worthy old notary public : 

"Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the 
ocean, 

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the 
notary public; 

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the 
maize, hung 

Over his shoulders ; his forehead was high ; and glasses 
with horn bows 

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom 
supernal. 

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a 
hundred 

Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his 
great watch tick. 

Four long years in the times of the war had he lan- 
guished a captive. 

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of 
the English. 

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or sus- 
picion. 

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and 
childlike." 

Again he mentions his sad fate, when describing 
Philadelphia : 

"There old Rene Leblanc died; and when he departed, 
Saw at his side 'only one of all liis hundred de- 
scendants." 

When the poet sat down to write this poem, like the 
admiral of "Pinafore" fame, "he stuck close to his 
desk." He traveled neither to Nova Scotia, nor to 



64 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Louisiana ; nor did he sail the wide reaches of the Mis- 
sissippi, nor wander over the Western prairies, nor 
penetrate the depths of the Michigan forests. He 
read books and saw these far-away lands with the eye 
of the imagination. The books he mentions as hav- 
ing helped him to construct his scenery were Wat- 
son's "Annals of Philadelphia," "Historical Collec- 
tions of Pennsylvania," and Darby's "Geographical 
Description of Louisiana." There must have been 
many more, but chief of all his helps was a diorama 
of the Mississippi. In his diary he writes: "I see a 
diorama of the Mississippi advertised. This comes 
very a propos. The river comes to me instead of my 
going to the river; and as it is to flow through the 
pages of the poem, I look upon this as a special bene- 
diction." Then he notes again that he "went to see 
Banvard's moving diorama of the Mississippi. One 
seems to be sailing down the great stream, and sees 
the boats and the sandbanks crested with cottonwood 
and the bayous by moonlight. Three miles of canvas 
and a great deal of merit." The wanderings of 
Evangeline through this book and diorama-land can 
be compared only with the wanderings of lo in the 
Prometheus of ^schylus through partly imaginary 
regions. Each poet outdoes himself in the particu- 
larity and variety of the geographical descriptions, so 
that one can scarcely believe the scenes have not been 
seen at first hand. 

Some one has said that Longfellow declared he 
would rather not see Acadia lest it might fall short 
of the picture his imagination had formed of it. 
Would that he could have had his inspiration fired by 
the reality, for here his descriptions certainly might 




Christ Church, Philadelphia 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 65 

have been more individual. They frequently carry 
suggestions of the Maine coast. He speaks some- 
times of the Basin of Minas shore, so mild in the 
neighborhood of Grand Pre, with its endless flats of 
dike land, as if it M^ere a rocky coast with dashing 
breakers. Even the opening of "Evangeline" does 
not correctly portray the mood of the Grand Pre 
country, although there are portions of Nova Scotia 
on the ocean side or on the Bay of Fundy shore which 
it would very well describe : 

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines 
and the hemlocks, 

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indis- 
tinct in the twilight, 

Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and 
prophetic. 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
bosoms. 

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neigh- 
boring ocean 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
of the forest." 

Again, he refers constantly to the Basin of Minas 
as the sea or the ocean, which calls up in the mind a 
picture entirely different from that of this land-locked 
bay, with but one narrow outlet to the larger Bay of 
Fundy. For example, in this passage descriptive of 
the scene when the Acadians were embarking: 

"Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 

ocean. 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and 

leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of 

the sailors." 



66 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Here again is a description reminiscent of the 
Maine coast: 



"Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 
the blood-red 

Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er 
the horizon 

Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon moun- 
tain and meadow, 

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 
shadows together." 

And again : 

"Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with 

the dirges. 
'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste 

of the ocean, 
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and 

hurrying landward." 

Quite in the mood of Grand Pre, however, is this : 

"Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of 

Grand Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft sweet air the Basin 

of Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were 

riding at anchor." 

Francis Parkman gives a striking description of the 
approach of the transports under Captain Winslow 
to Grand Pre which is worth quoting for the sake 
of the truthfulness of the picture : 

"On the fourteenth of August, Winslow set out 
from Beau Sejour. He sailed down Chignecto Chan- 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 67 

nel to the Bay of Fundy. Here, while they waited 
the turn of the tide to enter the Basin of Minas, the 
shores of Cumberland lay before them, dim in the hot 
and hazy air, and the promontory of Cape Split like 
some misshapen monster of primeval chaos stretched 
its portentous length along the glimmering sea, with 
head of yawning rock and ridgy back, bristled with 
forests. Borne on the rushing flood, they soon drifted 
through the inlet, gliding under the rival promontory 
of Cape Blomidon, passed the red sandstone cliffs of 
Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouths of the rivers 
Canard and des Habitants, where fertile marshes, 
diked against the tides, sustained a numerous and 
thriving population. Before them spread the bound- 
less meadows of Grand Pre, waving with harvests and 
alive with grazing cattle. The green slopes behind 
were dotted with the simple dwellings of the Acadian 
farmers, and the spire of the village church rose 
against a background of woody hills. It was a peace- 
ful, rural scene, soon to become one of the most 
wretched spots on earth." 

Since the writing of "Evangeline" there has been 
more or less controversy in regard to the real truth of 
the story connected with the expulsion of the Acadians 
from Nova Scotia. Sometimes feeling has reached 
an almost vituperative stage, according as the sympa- 
thies were on the side of the French Acadians or the 
English. Francis Parkman, in an article in Har- 
per's for November, 1884, administered a cruel blow 
to sentiment when he wrote : 

"Now was begun a dismal tragedy, famous in prose 
and verse, yet ill understood, both in its causes and 
events. The removal of the Acadians was the result 



68 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

of influences that had been at work for forty years, 
and which had now mounted to a crisis. Abbe Rey- 
nal, who knew nothing of these people except from 
hearsay, has drawn an ideal picture of them, which 
later writers have copied and embellished till Acadia 
has become Arcadia." 

Philip H. Smith took up the cudgels for the Aca- 
dians and there followed a lively correspondence in 
the Nation, the Post, and the Boston Transcript be- 
tween Mr. Parkman and Mr. Smith, in the course of 
which the tempers of the correspondents became so 
inflamed that they accused each other of not being 
able to write "good English" and of "bad grammar." 
Francis Parkman's account is fair enough in regard 
to the facts as they are to be gathered from the pub- 
lic documents of Nova Scotia, supplemented by the 
documents upon the French aspects of the case. But 
in his desire to palliate the action of the English, he 
has perhaps not seen quite clearly all the merits of 
the case. 

Dr. W. J. Anderson, in a paper in the "Transac- 
tions" of the Literary and Historical Society of Que- 
bec, entitled "Evangeline and the Archives of Nova 
Scotia," exammes the poem in the light of the docu- 
ments edited by Akins and concludes that after all 
there is substantial agreement between the poem and 
the documents. 

The truth is that the expulsion of the Acadians was 
one of those wrongs to which there is no possible right 
until Heaven and Earth shall pass away. 

Here was a peacefully inclined, industrious, re- 
ligiously superstitious people handed over by their 
French rulers to English rulers, with no "say" in the 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 69 

matter whatever. The English, on the one hand, de- 
mand an unquahfied oath of allegiance. The Aca- 
dians on the other will sign only an oath which ex- 
empts them from bearing arms against either the 
French, the English, or the Indians. They do not 
wish to become embroiled in hostilities of any kind — a 
most sensible attitude on their part, and one which 
seems to have been recognized at first in that light 
by some of the men who administered the oath, and 
who permitted a clause to be inserted to this effect 
or, in some cases, at least an understanding. 

There was more than one cause at work to lead the 
Acadians to take such an attitude. 

The French were deliberately trying to disaffect 
them, and through Jesuit missionaries, the most no- 
torious of whom was Le Loutre, terrorized them with 
the prospect of Indian raids if they should sign any 
oath implying that they would take up arms for the 
English. Furthermore, because of their religious de- 
votedness, the priests had tremendous control over 
them. It was not only troubles on earth they had to 
fear, but everlasting perdition if they went against the 
King of France, who was the bulwark of their faith. 
Is it any wonder that some of the Acadians became 
disaffected under such a strain, and were found sup- 
plying provisions to the French and the Indians? And 
upon a few occasions a handful seems actually to have 
borne arms against the English. These facts were 
made the most of by the English governors. In read- 
ing through the documents the impression grows 
constantly stronger that the English made a 
great boast of their kindness to the Acadians; 
they enlarged in every communication upon the 



70 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

value of their protection, and their graeious- 
ness in allowing the people the free exercise of 
their religion. As a matter of fact, they did 
not — indeed, had not the military force necessary to 
give protection, where it was most needed; that 
is, protection from the raids of the savages to 
which the Acadians are constantly referring as a 
menace to their flocks, their homes and their herds. It 
is also quite plain that the English fully appreciated 
the value of these peace-loving people as farmers who 
could supply them with provisions. In fact, they 
peremptorily insisted that they should be supplied 
with provisions. As the menace from the French be- 
came greater, it was, of course, only natural on the 
part of the English that they should wish to bind the 
Acadians to them by an unqualified oath of allegiance. 
Then began the voluntary departure of the Acadians 
from Nova Scotia, many preferring to leave their 
farms rather than sign the oath of allegiance as now 
demanded. Upon petitioning for passports and per- 
mission to leave, they were refused, and in conse- 
quence, many of them went off by stealth. 

Finally, the English not being able to solve the 
problem by fair means, resorted to a combination of 
stratagem and force. They had already taken away 
all arms fuom the Acadians, and now, after refusing 
them permission to leave and dispose of their prop- 
erty to their own advantage, it was suddenly decided 
to transport them, allowing them only their house- 
hold goods. In order to carry out this decision re- 
course was had to the mean trick of imprisoning the 
men and boys by stratagem. Lest the Acadians 
might join their fellow countrymen in Canada, they 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 71 

were scattered from end to end of the colonies. Thus 
these formidable enemies whose chief desires in life 
were not to be obliged to fight, and to be allowed to 
follow their religion, were prevented from giving fur- 
ther trouble. 

The letter dated Halifax, August eleventh^ 1755, 
giving instructions to the captain of the Transport 
Vessel shows what the temper of the English had be- 
come: 

"That the inhabitants may not have it in their power 
to return to this Province, nor to join in strengthen- 
ing the French of Canada or Louisburg, it is resolved 
that they shall be dispers'd among his Majesty's col- 
onies upon the continent of America. 

"For this purpose transports are sent up the Bay 
to ship off those at Chignecto, and Colonel Moncton 
will order those he cannot fill there into Mines Bason 
to carry off some part of the inhabitants of these dis- 
tricts. 

"Upon the arrival of these vessels from Boston or 
Chignecto in the Bason of Mines, as many of the in- 
habitants of the district of Mines, Pizaquid, Cobequid, 
and the River of Canard, etc., as can be collected by 
any means, particularly the heads of families and 
young men, are to be shipped on board of them at the 
above rate of two persons to a ton, or as near it as 
possible. 

"If the transports from Boston should arrive in 
Mines Bason before Mr. Saul, the Agent Victualler, 
shall arrive from Chignecto, they must remain there 
until he does arrive with the provisions. But in case 
you should have embarked any of the inhabitants be- 
fore the Agent Victualler be on the spot you will, if 



72 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

necessary, allow each person so embarked five pounds 
of flour and one pound of pork for seven days, which 
allowance Mr. Saul has orders to replace. 

"And you will in these orders, make it a particular 
injunction to the said masters to be as careful and 
watchful as possible during the whole course of the 
passage, to prevent the passengers from making any 
attempt to seize upon the vessel, by allowing only a 
small number to be upon the decks at a time, and using 
all other necessary precautions to prevent the bad con- 
sequences of such attempts; and that they be partic- 
ularly careful that the inhabitants have carried no 
arms or other offensive weapons on board with them 
at their embarkation. 

"As Captain Murray is well acquainted with the 
people and with the country, I would have you to 
consult with him upon all occasions and particularly 
with relation to the means necessary for collecting the 
people together so as to get them on board, and if 
you find that fair means will not do with them you 
must proceed by the most vigorous measures possible, 
not only in compelling them to embark, but in de- 
priving those who shall escape of all means of shelter 
or support by burning their houses, and by destroying 
everything that may afford them the means of sub- 
sistence in the country.'* 

Five hundred of these unfortunates were to be sent 
to North Carolina, one thousand to Virginia, and five 
hundred to Maryland. Many of them found their 
way to Louisiana, as the poem describes, where they 
have formed a distinct part of the inliabitants. At 
the present time their descendants in Louisiana are 
known as Ca jeans. 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 73 

These instructions in all their brutality were carried 
out to the letter, as Parkman's account, in spite of his 
English sympathy, shows just as fully if not more 
fully than Haliburton's earlier account. Arrived at 
Grand Pre, Colonel Winslow, who had charge of the 
affair there, took possession of the village church 
which was used as a storehouse and place of arms. 
Winslow took up his quarters in the house of the 
priest, and the tents for the men were pitched be- 
tween the church and the graveyard. Winslow, after 
making a tour of inspection with fifty men as escort 
on Sunday, decided to summon all the male inhab- 
itants to meet him in the church the following Fri- 
day. This was to give the farmers time to get in 
all the wheat, which they were allowed thus uncon- 
sciously to harvest for the use of the English. 

The summons read as follows : 

"By John Winslow, Esq., Lieutenant Colonel and 
commander of his Majesty's troops at Grand Pre, 
Mines, River Canard and Places adjacent: 

"To the inliabitants of the districts above named, as 
well ancients as young men and lads. 

"Whereas, his Excellency, the Governor, has in- 
structed us of his last resolution respecting the mat- 
ters proposed lately to the people in general, his Ex- 
cellency being desirous that each of them should be 
fully satisfied of his Majesty's intentions, which he 
has also ordered us to communicate to you such as 
they have been given him. 

"We therefore order and strictly enjoin by these 
presents to all the inliabitants as well of the above- 
named districts as of all the other districts, both old 
men and young men as well as all the lads of ten 



74 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

years of age, to attend at the church of Grand Pre 
on Friday, the 5th instant, at three of the clock in 
the afternoon, that we may impart what we are or- 
dered to communicate to them. Declaring that no 
excuse will be admitted on any pretense whatsoever, 
on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels in default." 
Parkman's account here is especially interesting as 
showing how close the "cold" historian sometimes came 
to the poet's view upon which he casts discredit. 

"On the next day the inhabitants appeared at the 
hour appointed to the number of 418 men. Winslow 
ordered a table to be set in the middle of the church, 
and placed on it his instructions and the address he 
had prepared. Then he took his stand in his laced 
uniform, with one or two subalterns from the reg- 
ulars at Fort Edward, and such of the Massachusetts 
officers as were not on guard duty. The congrega- 
tion of peasants clad in rough homespun, turned their 
sunburned faces upon him, anxious and intent, and 
Winslow delivered them by interpreters the King's 
orders in the following words : 

" 'Gentlemen, I have received from his Excellency, 
Governor Lawrence, the King's instructions, which I 
have in my hand. By his orders you are called to- 
gether to hear his Majesty's final resolution concern- 
ing the French inhabitants of this, his province of 
Nova Scotia, who, for almost half a century, have had 
more indulgence granted them than any of his sub- 
jects in any part of his dominions. What use you 
have made of it you yourselves know. 

" 'The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is 
very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as 
I know it must be grievous to you, who are of the same 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 75 

species. But it is not my business to animadvert on 
the orders I have received, but to obey them; and 
therefore, without hesitation I shall deliver to you his 
Majesty's instructions and commands, which are that 
your lands and tenements and cattle and live stock 
of all kinds are forfeited to the crown, with all your 
other effects, except money and household goods, and 
that you yourselves are to be removed from this, his 
province. 

" 'The peremptory orders of his Majesty are that 
all the French inhabitants of these districts be re- 
moved, and through his Majesty's goodness I am di- 
rected to allow you the liberty of carrying with you 
your money and as many of your household goods as 
you can take without overloading the vessels you go in. 
I shall do everything in my power that all these goods 
shall be secured to you, and that you be not molested 
in carrying them away, and also that whole families 
shall go in the same vessel, so that this removal, which 
I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, 
may be made as easy as his Majesty's service w^ill ad- 
mit, and hope that in whatever part of the world your 
lot may fall you may be faithful subjects and a peace- 
able and happy people. 

" 'I must also inform you that it is his Majesty's 
pleasure that you remain in security under the in- 
spection and the direction of the troops that I have 
the honor to command.' 

"He then declared them prisoners of the King. 
'They w^ere greatl}^ struck,' he says, 'at this deter- 
mination, tho I believe they did not believe that 
they were actually to be removed.' After delivering 
the address he returned to his quarters at the priest's 



76 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

house, whither he was followed by some of the elder 
prisoners, who begged leave to tell their families what 
had happened, since they were fearful that the sur- 
prise of their detention would quite overcome them. 
Winslow consulted with his officers, and it was ar- 
ranged that the Acadians should choose twenty each 
day to revisit their homes, the rest being held answer- 
able for their return." 

The action on the part of the Acadians which led 
to this crisis in affairs is best told from their own let- 
ters to the English Governor: 

"Mines, June 10th, 1755. 
"To His Excellency, Charles Lawrence, Governor of 
the Province of Nova Scotia or Acadie, &c., &c. : 

"Sir — We, the inhabitants of Mines, Pisiquid, and 
the river Canard, take the liberty of approaching 
your Excellency for the purpose of testifying our 
sense of the care which the government exercises 
towards us. 

"It appears, Sir, that your Excellency doubts the 
sincerity with which we have promised to be faithful 
to his Britannic Majesty. 

"We most humbly beg your Excellency to consider 
our past conduct. You will see that, very far from 
violating the oath we have taken, we have maintained 
it in its entirety, in spite of the solicitations and the 
dreadful threats of another power. We still enter- 
tain. Sir, the same pure and sincere disposition to 
prove, under any circumstances, our unshaken fidelity 
to his Majesty, provided that his Majesty shall allow 
us the same liberty that he has granted us. We 
earnestly beg your Excellency to have the goodness 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 77 

to inform us of his Majesty's intentions on this sub- 
ject, and to give us assurances on his part. 

"Permit us, if you please, Sir, to make known the 
annoying circumstances in which we are placed, to 
the prejudice of the tranquillity we ought to enjoy. 
Under pretext that we are transporting our corn and 
other provisions to Beau Sejour, and the river St. 
John, we are no longer permitted to carry the least 
quantity of corn by water from one place to another. 
. . . Moreover, our guns, which we regard as our 
own personal property, have been taken from us, not- 
withstanding the fact that they are absolutely neces- 
sary to us, either to defend our cattle which are at- 
tacked by the wild beasts, or for the protection of our 
children and of ourselves. . . . 

"It is certain, Sir, that since the savages have ceased 
frequenting our parts, the wild beasts have greatly 
increased, and that our cattle are devoured by them 
almost every day. Besides, the arms which have been 
taken from us are but a feeble guarantee of our fidel- 
ity. It is not the gun which an inhabitant possesses, 
that will induce him to revolt, nor the privation of the 
same gun that will make him more faithful; but his 
conscience alone must induce him to maintain his 
oath. An order has appeared in your Excellency's 
name, given at Fort Edward, June 4th, 1755, and in 
the 28th year of his Majesty's reign, by which we are 
commanded to carry guns, pistols, etc., to Fort 
Edward. 

"It appears to us. Sir, that it would be dangerous 
for us to execute that order, before representing to 
you the danger to which this order exposes us. The 
savages may come and threaten and plunder us, re- 



78 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

preaching us for having furnished arms to kill them. 
We hope, Sir, that you will be pleased, on the con- 
trary, to order that those taken from us be restored 
to us. By so doing j'^ou will afford us the means of 
preserving both ourselves and our cattle. In the 
last place, we are grieved, Sir, at seeing ourselves de- 
clared guilty without being aware of having disobeyed. 
One of our inhabitants of the river Canard, named 
Piere Melan9on, was seized and arrested in charge of 
his boat, before having heard any order forbidding 
that sort of transport. We beg your Excellency, on 
this subject, to have the goodness to make known to 
us your good pleasure before confiscating our prop- 
erty and considering us in fault. This is the favor 
we expect from your Excellency's kindness, and we 
hope that you will do us the justice to believe that, very 
far from violating our promises, we will maintain 
them. Assuring you that we are very respectfully, 
Sir, 

"Your very humble and obt. servants." 

The powers that be were outraged at this letter, es- 
pecially at the clause about the guns. "They were 
asked," writes Governor Lawrence, "what excuse they 
could make for their presumption in this paragraph, 
and treating the government with such indignity and 
contempt as to expound to them the nature of fidel- 
ity, and to prescribe what would be the security proper 
to be relied on by the government for their sincerity." 

The substance of the reply to this communication 
was that they must at once take an oath of unqualified 
allegiance. The deputies refused to do this and were 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 79 

imprisoned ; whereupon followed another letter to his 
Excellency, Charles Lawrence. 

"Inasmuch as a report is in circulation among us, 
the French inliabitants of this province, that his Ex- 
cellency, the Governor, demands of us an oath of 
obedience conformable in some manner to that of nat- 
ural subjects of His Majesty, King George the Sec- 
ond, and as, in consequence, we are morally certain 
that several of our inhabitants are detained and put 
to inconvenience at Halifax for that object; if the 
above are his intentions with respect to us, we all 
take the liberty of representing to his Excellency, and 
to all the inhabitants, that we and our fathers, having 
taken an oath of fidelity, which has been approved of 
several times in the name of the King, and under the 
privileges of which we have lived faithful and obedi- 
ent, and protected by His Majesty, the King of Great 
Britain, according to the letters and proclamations 
of his Excellency, Governor Shirley, dated 16th of 
September, 1746, and 21st of October, 1747. We will 
never prove so fickle as to take an oath which changes 
ever so little the conditions and privileges obtained 
for us by our sovereigns and our fathers in the past. 

"And so we are well aware that the King, our mas- 
ter, loves and protects only constant, faithful, and 
free subjects, and as it is only by virtue of his kindness, 
and of the fidelity which we have always preserved 
toward his Majesty, that he has granted to us, and 
that he still continues to grant to us the entire posses- 
sion of our property and the free and public exercise 
of the Roman Catholic religion, we desire to continue 
to the utmost our power and be faithful and dutiful 



80 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

in the same manner that we were allowed to be by 
his Excellency, Mr. Richard Philipps. 

"Charity for our detained inhabitants, and their in- 
nocence, oblige us to beg your Excellency to allow 
yourself to be touched by their miseries and restore to 
them that liberty which we ask for them, with all pos- 
sible submission and the most profound respect. 

"Signed by 203 of the said inhabitants of Mines 
and the River Canard." 

This was the end of all for the Acadians. Their 
fate is a lasting monument of the iniquity of the pol- 
icy of Kings and rulers, in settling political disputes 
with which the people at large have nothing to do, by 
handing over the lands occupied by them to alien gov- 
ernments. To conquer an army is not to conquer a 
people. There is something inspiring in the spectacle 
of this handful of farmers stubbornly refusing to per- 
jure themselves by an oath to which they could not 
in all sincerity subscribe. They endeavored to pre- 
serve their integrity as individuals by taking a neu- 
tral position politically. Wiser and less selfish gov- 
ernments would have seen the strength of such an at- 
titude and would perhaps have compromised by allow- 
ing them to maintain an independent footing com- 
mercially and politically. 

It was not PhilipiDS, as the Nova Scotia documents 
frequently say, who allowed the exemption from bear- 
ing arms, but Armstrong, who was governor during 
Philipps' absence in Europe. He and one or 'two 
others who permitted this understanding were se- 
verely reprimanded for it by their government. 

The French government was just as much, if not 
more to blame than the English. Even Parkman is 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 81 

strong on this point. Speaking of the malign influ- 
ence of Le Loutre, who was missionary to the Micmac 
Indians and vicar-general for Acadia under the 
Bishop of Quebec, he says : 

"He threatened the Acadians with excommunica- 
tion if they obeyed the King of England. In con- 
nection with French officers across the line, he encour- 
aged them to put on the disguise of Indians and join 
his Micmacs in pillaging and killing English settlers 
on the outskirts of Halifax, when the two nations were 
at peace. He drew, on one occasion, from a French 
official, 1,800 livres to pay his Indians for English 
scalps. With a reckless disregard of the welfare of 
the unhappy people under his charge he spared no 
means to embroil them with the government under 
which, but for him and his fellow conspirators, they 
would have lived in peace and contentment. An en- 
tire heartlessness marked the dealings of the French 
authorities with the Acadians. They were treated as 
mere tools of policy to be used, broken and flung 
away.'* 

Both the sturdy spirit of independence and the 
peaceableness of the Acadians are brought out by the 
poet. Benedict Belief ontaine is the type of the peace- 
ful farmer who guilelessly believes in the good, while 
Basil, the blacksmith, is suspicious and bristling with 
the fire of independence. He it is who exclaims when 
the farmer thinks some friendly purpose may have 
brought the English ships to the harbor: 

" 'Not so thinketh the folk in the village,' said, warm- 
ly, the blacksmith. 

Shaking his head as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, he 
continued : 



82 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

'Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor 

Port Royal. 
Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 

outskirts, 
Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to- 
morrow. 
Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons 

of all kinds; 
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the 

scythe of the mower.' 
Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial 

farmer : 
*Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and 

our cornfields, 
Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the 

ocean, 
Than were our fathers in forts, besieged by the 

enemy's cannon.' " 

And again it is Basil who, in such fierce and just 
anger, when he finds himself and his friends trapped 
in the church, rises with his arms uplifted : 

"As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 

wildly he shouted, 
'Down with the tyrants of England! We never have 

sworn them allegiance! 
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our 

homes and our harvests !' 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand 

of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth and dragged him down 

to the pavement." 

Longfellow had only Haliburton and the Abbe 
Reynal to draw upon for his historical facts and the 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 83 

description of the Acadian's manner of life. It is 
all the more remarkable, on this account, that his 
interpretation of the history, as we have seen, should 
chime in so well with the documents and conclusions 
of later investigators, even when, like Parkman, they 
have English sympathies. 

With the already complimentary basis of the Abbe 
Reynal's account to build upon, the poet allowed his 
imagination full scope in depicting the every-day life 
of the Acadians. By Reynal the Acadians are 
described in glowing colors. Hunting and fishing by 
which the colony had in the first place subsisted, gave 
way to agriculture. The meadows, which they re- 
claimed from the tides, with dikes, were so fertile that 
under cultivation they yielded as much as fifteen or 
twenty for one. The soil was especially good for 
wheat and oats, but they also grew crops of rye, bar- 
ley and maize. Potatoes and apples then as now were 
among their most important products. Live-stock 
they had in the same profusion, poultry, sheep, horned 
cattle, computed at sixty thousand head. Most fam- 
ilies had several horses, though the tillage then, as 
often now, was carried on by oxen. These prosper- 
ous farmers, according to the Abbe, lived in dwell- 
ings, made of wood, which were extremely convenient, 
and furnished as substantially as prosperous farmers' 
houses in Europe. As for their clothing, it was the 
product of their own flax or their own sheep; linen 
and cloth, not very fine in texture, of course, but 
durable. Those who desired luxuries they could not 
make for themselves could procure them from An- 
napolis or Louisburg in exchange for corn, cattle or 
furs. Exchanges among themselves were rare, be- 



84 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

cause every family was able to provide for its own 
wants. They had no paper money and only a small 
quantity of gold and silver. Their manners, their cus- 
toms and their government were just as simple as 
their industrial life. If they had any differences, the 
wise elders or the priests settled them. Marriages 
were early ; when the young men were ready to marry, 
the whole community took an interest in the event. 
His neighbors of the village built him a house, got 
the land about it in readiness for planting, and pre- 
sented him with all the necessaries of life for a year. 
His bride came to him there with flocks as her por- 
tion. It is not surprising that under such conditions 
of life, if they actually existed, real misery was un- 
known. If any one suffered any misfortune, it was 
relieved almost before it was felt, in a spirit of simple 
kindness. Every individual was equally ready to give 
and to receive, believing it to be the common right of 
mankind. 

Longfellow, not satisfied with this doubtless ideal- 
ized picture, "gilds the lily" by adding embellish- 
ments borrowed from the peasant life in Sweden 
as he himself saw it. J. N. Mcllwraith, in "A Book 
About Longfellow," was the first to call attention 
to the fact that the descriptions of the Acadians 
showed traces of some European influence, and a 
writer in the autumn number of Poet Lore, 1908, Ed- 
ward Thostenberg, makes quite an exhaustive study 
of the subject, showing pretty conclusively that these 
influences were Swedish. Not only had Longfellow 
traveled in Sweden, but he was much interested in 
Swedish literature. His admiration of Tegner, in 
particular, resulted in his writing an article on Teg- 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 85 

ner's "Frithiof s Saga," at the beginning of which he 
describes quite at length the impressions he received 
of the country and the Hfe in Sweden. Mr. Thosten- 
berg writes: "His recollections center mainly about 
two thoughts: the thought of the gloom and solitude 
of a forest landscape in Sweden, on the one hand, 
and on the other the 'primeval simplicity,' the idyllic 
life of the peasant population." It is certainly not 
necessary to go to Sweden for forest landscapes such 
as Longfellow paints in "Evangeline." As already 
intimated, he could find many a "forest," seemingly 
"primeval," on his own Maine coast, and trees "trail- 
ing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones," 
like those in Sweden. But that he has transported into 
his poem some of the aspects of the life of the Swedish 
people there can be little doubt. The Grand Pre 
houses resemble, as described in "Evangeline," the 
Swedish houses built of "hewn timber." "Frequent, 
too," writes the poet in his article on the Saga, "are the 
village churches, standing by the roadside, each in its 
own little garden of Gethsemane. Near the church- 
yard gate stands a poor hooc, fastened to a post by 
iron bands and secured by a padlock, with a sloping 
wooden roof to keep off the rain." Such a box ap- 
pears in the poem : 

"Under the sycamore tree were hives overhung by a 
penthouse. 
Such as the traveler sees in regions remote by the 

roadside. 
Built o'er a box for the poor or the blessed image of 
Mary." 

The description of a village wedding also furnishes 
hints made use of by the poet. "In this description," 



86 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

writes Mr. Thostenberg, "Longfellow says that the 
bride is dressed in a red bodice and kirtle, with loose 
linen sleeves. In connection with the scene in 'Evan- 
geline/ in which Father Felician is introduced, we 
read that 'matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps 
and kirtles scarlet, blue and green.' The poet here 
employs a word, hirtle, which in his own language is 
archaic, while the Swedish cognate kjortel continues to 
be the regular word for skirt. His rather frequent use 
— three times each in the poem and in the article on 
the Saga — of this otherwise obsolescent word seems, 
therefore, to have been induced by his knowledge and 
thought of the Swedish word, kjortel. The peasant 
women of Sweden, morever, have long been known for 
their delight in gay colors of dress, such as the poet 
gives to the Acadian women. In many sections of the 
country all the women of a given parish formerly wore 
costumes of a definite combination of colors, whereby 
they could be readily distinguished from the peasant 
sisters of other parishes. Even in later years the par- 
ticular combination of 'snow-white caps, and kirtles 
scarlet and blue and green,' has been known to survive 
quite commonly in some of the southern provinces, for 
example, Dalekarlia, Scania, and Soderwanland. 
From his direct mention of the Dalekarlian peasant 
women, we may infer that Longfellow had visited 
their province, and we know that he passed through 
the other two on his way both to and from Stock- 
holm." 

The fascinating myths which the poet puts into the 
mouth of the old notary public, also seem to be of 
Swedish origin. He observes in the Saga article: "In 
every mysterious sound that fills the air, the peasant 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 87 

still hears the trembling of Odin's steed, which many 
centuries ago took fright at the sound of a church 
bell. The sound of Stromkarl's flute is heard in 
tinkling brooks and his song in waterfalls. In the 
forest, the Skogsfrun, of wondrous beauty, leads 
young men astray; and Tomtegubbe hammers and 
pounds away, all night long, at the peasant's unfin- 
ished cottage." 

"The goblin here mentioned,'* says Mr. Thosten- 
berg, the tomtegubbe^ plays an unusually large and 
important role in the folk-lore of the Scandinavian 
North. He is a friendly spirit who performs many 
and valuable services for those who treat him kindly 
and are industrious and upright in their living. While 
the peasant sleeps, the goblin is busy putting up 
buildings for him, chopping his wood, or carrying 
heads of grain to his barn. But his chief occupation 
is that of looking to the proper care of the domestic 
animals, and with these he accordingly makes his 
home. This last service mentioned of the goblin was 
clearly in the poet's mind when, in 'Evangeline,' he 
characterized the notary public as a man who related 
tales, among them the tale 'of the goblin that came in 
the night to water the horses.' " 

This writer goes on to point out how both Tegner's 
"Frithiofs Saga" and "The Children of the Lord's 
Supper," translated by the poet, furnished sugges- 
tions for descriptions in "Evangeline." From among 
a number of examples, the descriptions of the cows 
and the horses in the "Saga" and "Evangeline" may 
be selected to show just how much and how little 
Longfellow's debt was to the Swedish poet. In de- 
scribing the cows the "Saga" has — 



88 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"But in the valleys full widely around, there fed on 
the greensward 
Herds with sleek shining hides and udders that 
longed for the milk-pail." 

Longfellow's description enlarges considerably 
upon this : 

"Twilight descending 
Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the 

herds to the homestead ; 
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful 

heifer. 
Proud of her snow-white hide and the ribbon that 

waved from her collar. 

jA» si/L ita ik. :^ £k. iif' 

yfc 'yfc Tf^ 7t^ Tf^ ^n^ -^ 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
cadence 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de- 
scended." 

Now take the horses. In the Saga there are — 

"Coursers two times twelve, all mettlesome, fast-fet- 
tered storm winds. 

Stamping stood in the line of stalls, and tugged at 
their fodder. 

Knotted with red were their manes, and their hoofs 
all white with steel shoes." 

And in "Evangeline" — 

"Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
and their fetlocks. 
While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- 
derous saddles, 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 89 

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels 

of crimson, 
Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 

blossoms." 

By combining all that he knew of the most beautiful 
of peasant Hfe, Longfellow has given a picture of 
peace, plenty and joyousness to be compared only 
with such imaginative flights as Morris's "Dream of 
John Ball," and why should he not? Where are we 
to find ideals if not in the poets? 

Parkman corrects this picture with the chilling 
wind of reality. He writes: "The Acadians were a 
simple and very ignorant peasantry, industrious and 
frugal, till evil days came to discourage them; living 
aloof from the world, with little of that spirit of ad- 
venture which marked their Canadian kindred, hav- 
ing few wants and those of the rudest: fishing a little 
and hunting in the winter, but chiefly employed in 
cultivating the meadows along the river Annapolis, or 
rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from the tides of the 
Bay of Fundy. The British Government left them 
entirely free of taxation. They made clothing of flax 
or wool of their own raising. They had cattle, sheep, 
hogs and horses in abundance, and the valley of the 
Annapolis, then as now, was known for the profusion 
and excellency of its apples. For drink they made 
cider or brewed spruce beer. French officials de- 
scribe the dwellings as wretched wooden boxes, with- 
out ornaments or conveniences and scarcely supplied 
with the most necessary furniture. Two or more fam- 
ilies often occupied the same house, and their way of 
life, though simple and virtuous, was by no means 
remarkable for cleanliness. Such as it was, content 



90 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

reigned among them. Marriages were early and pop- 
ulation grew apace. This humble society had its dis- 
turbing elements, for, like the Canadians, they were a 
litigious race, and neighbors often quarreled about 
their boundaries. Nor were they without a bountiful 
share of jealousy, gossip and back-biting to relieve the 
monotony of their lives; and every village had its 
turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely 
long, contumacious even to the Cure, the guide, coun- 
selor and ruler of the flock. Enfeebled by hereditary 
mental subjection, and too long kept in leading strings 
to walk alone, they needed him not for the next world 
only, but for this, and their submission compounded of 
love and fear was commonly without bounds. He 
was their true government : to him they gave a frank 
and full allegiance and dared not disobey him if they 
would." 

Barring the different accounts of their houses and 
the added information of their sometimes being quar- 
relsome among themselves, a close scrutiny of the 
facts reveals that they differ very little in essential 
particulars from those in the Abbe's account. The 
difference is mainly in the personal equation of the 
writer. The Abbe Reynal perceived the intrinsic 
beauty of a simple pastoral and religious life, while 
Francis Parkman, from his lofty pinnacle of nine- 
teenth century culture, sees its limitations so distinctly 
that its beauties escape him completely. The truth 
probably lies between the two extremes. It is, how- 
ever, interesting to note that Acadians, after they were 
dispersed, seem to have impressed the people with 
whom they came in contact with the mildness and in- 
tegrity of their character. Haliburton, remarking 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 91 

upon the picture drawn by the Abbe, says : "By many 
it is thought to represent a state of social happiness, 
totally inconsistent with the frailties and passions of 
human nature ; and that it is worthy rather of the poet 
than the historian. In describing a scene of rural fe- 
licity like this, it is not improbable that his narrative 
has partaken of the warmth of feehng for which he 
was remarkable; but it comes much nearer the truth 
than is generally imagined. Tradition is fresh and 
positive in the various parts of the United States 
where they were located respecting their guileless, 
peaceable, and scrupulous character; and the descend- 
ants of those, whose long cherished and endearing 
local attachment induced them to return to the land 
of their nationality, still deserve the name of a mild, 
frugal and pious people." 

An anecdote related by Eliza Brown Chase in her 
entertaining little book "Over the Border: Acadia," 
tells the same tale. It seems that many years ago two 
girls were in the habit of strolling to what was then 
suburban Philadelphia in their walks, and that when 
they went to visit the Pennsylvania Hospital at Ninth 
and Pine streets, they were afraid because they were 
obliged to pass the place where the "French Neu- 
trals," as the Acadians were called, lived. 

These people, because they were foreigners and 
there was some mystery about them, which the girls 
did not then understand, inspired them with fear; 
though Philadelphia residents of that time testify that 
the homeless and destitute strangers were in reality a 
very simple and inoffensive company. 

The one place described in the poem where Long- 
fellow had been was Philadelphia. Here he placed 



92 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

the poorhouse where Evangeline and Gabriel finally- 
met, though his recollections of its location seem to 
have been rather vague. He writes: "I was passing 
down Spruce Street one day toward my hotel after a 
walk, when my attention was attracted to a large 
building with beautiful trees about it, inside of a high 
enclosure. I walked along until I came to the great 
gate, and then stepped inside and looked carefully 
over the place. The charming picture of lawn, 
flower-beds and shade which it presented made an 
impression which has never left me, and when I came 
to write 'Evangeline,' I placed the final scene, the 
meeting between Evangeline and Gabriel, and the 
death at the poorhouse, and the burial in an old Cath- 
olic graveyard not far away, which I found by chance 
in another of my walks." He evidently refers here to 
the "Pennsylvania Hospital," which fills up a whole 
square from Spruce Street to Pine Street and from 
Eighth to Ninth. There was said to have been an 
almshouse at the corner of Twelfth and Spruce in 
the days of the Acadians. The writer lived, when a 
small child, on Spruce Street above Twelfth, but if 
an almshouse ever stood there it had long given place 
to the neat Philadelphia dwelling house of red brick 
with white shutters and white marble steps. The 
children in the neighborhood used to be astonished 
when told that once upon a time this was out in the 
coimtry. Then, as now, the City Almshouse was 
three or four miles away across the Schuylkill in 
West Philadelphia. A little above the corner of 
Twelfth and Spruce was a confectioner's where small 
sugar cakes and lemon sticks could be procured for 
a cent apiece. Diagonally opposite at the corner 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 93 

was an entrancing paper-doll shop. There, paper 
dolls could be furnished with every variety of fancy 
papers, brocades and satins and piques, with laces 
and with flowers for their costumes. These also a 
cent apiece! It may be imagined what a thriving 
shopping district it had become since the days of 
Evangeline for small fry with pennies to spend. 

Some people seem to know better than Longfel- 
low himself what building he had in mind. They 
beheve he meant to portray the quaint building for- 
merly known as the Friends' Almshouse, which stood 
in Walnut Place, opening off Walnut Street be- 
low Fourth, torn down in '72 or '73. Indeed, the poet 
finally himself wrote to a Philadelphia woman a letter 
in which he declared the Friends' Almshouse was the 
one he intended to describe. Who then can be cer- 
tain when his own letters are contradictory? This 
is described by one who remembered it: 

"The entrance from the street, by 'gateway and 
wicket,' as the poem says, led through a narrow 
passageway; and there faced one a small, low-roofed 
house, built of alternate red and black bricks (the 
latter glazed), almost entirely covered by an aged 
ivy which clambered over the roof. The straggling 
branches even nodded above the wide chimneys: at 
both sides of the door stood comfortable settees, in- 
viting to rest; and the pretty garden charmed with 
its bloom and fragrance. The whole formed such a 
restful retreat, such an oasis of quiet in the very heart 
of the busy city, that one was tempted often to make 
excuses for straying into the peaceful enclosure." 

Perhaps he had both places in mind, but whatever 
may have been the exact spot, it seems hardly possi- 



94 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ble that Evangeline could have heard, that Sabbath 
morn, the Swedes singing psalms in their church at 
Wicaco, for the old Swedish church is some miles to 
the south on Second Street. She might, however, 
have heard the chimes of Christ Church, though even 
that is a mile or more away from any of the possible 
locations of the almshouse in this city, where — 

"All the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of 

beauty. 
And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 

the forest. 
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose 

haunts they molested." 

As every one knows, the pathetic romance of Evan- 
geline and Gabriel was developed by the poet from 
a story which the Rev. H. L. ConoUy had heard from 
a French-Canadian. He told it to Hawthorne, who 
jotted it down in his note-book: 

"H. L. C. heard from a French Canadian a story 
of a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage 
day all the men in the province were summoned to 
assemble in the church to hear a proclamation. When 
assembled, they were all seized and shipped off to be 
distributed through New England, among them the 
new bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him 
— wandered about New England all her lifetime, and 
at last when she was old she found her bridegroom on 
his death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed 
her likewise." One day when Conolly and Haw- 
thorne were dining with Longfellow, the story was 
again mentioned, Conolly wondering that Haw- 
thorne did not care for it. "If j^ou really do not want 




Friends' Almshouse, Philadelphia 



THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 95 

this incident for a tale," said Longfellow, "let me 
have it for a poem." 

And so the poem was written, and the Acadians 
immortalized. "Evangeline" belongs to the earliest 
recollections of many of us. To some its simple dig- 
nity and beauty became obscured through school uses. 
In the writer's early school days Milton's Satan and 
Evangeline, hand in hand, led the young grammarian 
wearisomely through the purgatorial regions of 
parsing. But after several years of the torturing 
problems of Ibsen and the psychical miseries of 
Maeterlinck, this wholesome tale of the unswerving 
loyalty of two beings through a lifetime of suffering 
and separation gives one a renewed sense of faith in 
humanity. 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 



"And thou, America, 

For the schemers culmination, its thought and its reality. 

For these {not for thyself) thou hast arrived. 

"Thou too surroundest all. 

Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, thou too by pathways 

broad and new. 
To the ideal tendest. 

"The measured faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the 

past. 
Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own, 
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all, 

all eligible to all. 

"All, all for immortality. 
Love like the light silently wrapping all, 
Nature^s amelioration blessing all. 

The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain. 
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images 
ripening." 

Whitman. 



Ill 



HAWTHORNE wrote to Longfellow: "I 
never was more surprised than at your writing 
poems about slavery. I have not seen them, 
but have faith in their excellence, though I cannot con- 
jecture what species of excellence it will be. You 
have never poetized a practical subject hitherto." 
Longfellow was so distinctly a lover of the romantic 
that only a romantic treatment occurred to him, even 
when dealing with the stern problem of slavery, al- 
ready looming into the foreground of national affairs 
at that time — some twenty years before it was threshed 
out at the bar of force. There is a handful of poems, 
each presenting some picture or episode under the 
conditions of slavery, which seems slight, even senti- 
mental, when compared with utterances made by 
others of deeper philosophical insight. Still, these 
poems have their place, and perhaj^s did surer work in 
arousing dormant sympathy just because of their tell- 
ing the story of slave wrongs and sufferings in a 
simple and sympathetic manner, instead of with due 
thundering of righteous wrath. The Dial, ^vith its 
deeply serious aims, might dismiss the book with 
scant notice as "spirited and polished like its fore- 
runners; but the subject would warrant a deeper 
tone" ; but there were many to whose hearts the poems 

99 



100 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

made a strong appeal. Among the dozens of letters 
received by the poet are such expressions of enthusi- 
asm as the following: "Such poems on slavery are 
never to be forgotten; and I must not refrain from 
giving you my heartiest thanks. They are all one 
could wish them to be — poetry, simple, graceful, 
strong; without any taint of coarseness, harshness or 
passion. I think the Quadroon is my favorite." 
Even a correspondent who took the poet to task for 
his general attitude on the subject of slavery is warm 
in his praise of the "Quadroon Girl." He writes: 
"I do not like the sentiment of your first piece, and 
though respecting Dr. Channing as an eminently 
good man, I think every word he wrote on the sub- 
ject at least did no good. . . The 'Chartered lie' 
of our respected Declaration is no doubt a lie, and 
would not have been inserted except for the present 
necessity, but it is only so because men are not in 
fact created free and equal, and if they were could not 
remain so a single moment. There must he 'thrones, 
dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.' I regret, 
too, that in piece second you should consider your 
African, riding like mad in such guise over the desert, 
killing men^ women and children, and being himself 
killed in turn, stealing everything he can lay his 
hands on ; seizing his neighbor's little ones for sale, or 
perhaps selling his own ; in one word, an unreclaimed 
barbarian — as a more respectable character than the 
same person pursuing agriculture as a profession at 
the South, attending church on Sunday, dancing care 
off when his work is done, playing with his master's 
children possibly, and, on the whole, enjoying him- 
self ten times as much as half our surly freemen who 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 101 

commiserate him. I very much doubt the sentiment 
you impute to him." But even this caviller found 
the "Quadroon Girl" a "gem": "The description of 
herself is as sweet a thing as I remember to have seen, 
and as touching, and above all praise. The whole 
piece is exquisitely wrought and the thing it depicts 
too horrible for the human heart to endure — almost 
to believe. This is the great evil of slavery and de- 
serves all the assaults which indignant humanity can 
hurl at it." 

What it meant to come out publicly on the side of 
anti-slavery at that time is shown by the fact that the 
editor of a Philadelphia magazine wrote to apologize 
for giving the poems insufficient notice, because the 
word slavery was not allowed to appear in his mag- 
azine. Only with difficulty had he obtained from the 
publishers permission to print the title of the book 
"Poems on Slavery." 

The story of the writing of these poems is an in- 
teresting one. Longfellow had been in London vis- 
iting Charles Dickens, one of his most cherished 
friends. Dickens had then written his "American 
Notes" with its "Grand Chapter on Slavery," as the 
poet called it. In this chapter it may be remembered 
that Dickens makes an especial point of the brutaliz- 
ing effect upon the American people of the institution 
of slavery, contending that the advertisements con- 
stantly appearing in the Southern newspapers could 
but have a deteriorating influence upon the young 
minds of the South. He quotes several columns of 
them. It is difficult for those who were not born into 
the nation while yet it was the holder of slaves, to real- 
ize that such advertisements could appear in a civ- 



102 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ilized country in the nineteenth century. They ask 
for the apprehension of runaway slaves, and, in order 
that the slaves may be identified, the owners describe 
with unblushing frankness the marks of cruelty to 
be found on their bodies, such as teeth punched out, 
scars from gun wounds or knife wounds, letters 
branded in the cheek with hot irons. Dickens was 
perfectly aware of the fact that all slave-holders were 
not monsters of cruelty, but that did not prevent him 
from hurling forth his well-grounded indignation at 
an institution which countenanced cruelties so dis- 
graceful. 

Longfellow speaks of having read this book in 
London, and probably this, together with talk on the 
subject with its author, fired his long-smouldering 
sympathy for the anti-slavery movement to the point 
of versification. He had long before wished to do 
something in his "humble way," he said, for the cause, 
and had thought of writing a drama on "Toussaint 
rOuverture." He set sail for America immediately 
after this visit in the once-famous ocean vessel, the 
Great Western, and himself describes his "boister- 
ous" passage home in the teeth of a gale from the 
west. In this hurly-burly of the elements he com- 
posed his slave poems. "I was not out of my berth 
more than twelve hours for the first twelve days. I 
was in the forward part of the vessel, where all the 
great waves struck and broke with voices of thunder. 
There, 'cribbed, cabined and confined,' I passed fif- 
teen days. During this time I wrote seven poems on 
Slavery. I meditated upon them in the stormy, 
sleepless nights, and wrote them down with a pencil 
in the morning. A small window admitted light into 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 103 

my berth, and there I lay on my back and soothed 
my soul with songs." 

This is the only time Longfellow ventured into the 
burning questions of the day. He, however, sent a 
young son into the war when the long-brewing crisis 
came, whose illness first and later whose dangerous 
wounds took the poet twice to Washington. He thus 
had his full share in the anxiety of those troublous 
times. 

In judging these poems to-day, however, it should 
always be borne in mind that Longfellow's was not a 
militant but a sympathetic nature. As Samuel 
Longfellow writes: "With the Abolitionist leaders he 
was not acquainted. To his pacific temper, constitu- 
tionally averse to controversy, and disliking every- 
thing violent, these brave and unrelenting fighters for 
justice, humanity and liberty seemed often harsh, 
violent and dictatorial." With the seriousness of 
Sumner, however, he was deeply in sympathy and 
the two were life-long friends. He belonged by na- 
ture to the unclassified sympathizers with anti- 
slavery. Such are not the people who push forward 
a movement. Their part is to shed a cheerful light 
upon the paths of those who do, and for this reason 
their value is beyond price. 

Longfellow's muse was better attuned to glimpses 
into the history of the past, which he always chose 
to look at with the artist's prerogative of leaving out 
or changing anything in the landscape that would 
detract from his artistic design. "Paul Revere's 
Ride" is a vital and stirring presentation of an epi- 
sode, picturesque as well as of profound import for 
the future of America, but it is proverbial for its his- 



104 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

torical inaccuracies. Nevertheless the greater part 
of the school children of the United States remember 
the nineteenth of April more because of this poem 
than because of their history lessons. So convincing 
is it that even grown-up historians repeat its inac- 
curacies as bona fide history. No less a man than 
John Fiske was sadly mixed about the famous bea- 
con lanterns and, in all seriousness, relates that Paul 
Revere watched for them himself in Charlestown. 
No one who compares Revere's own circumstantial 
and unilluminated account of his ride with Longfel- 
low's ballad but will be thankful to the poet for giv- 
ing us flashlights upon him as he rides through the 
darkness. 

"It was twelve by the village clock 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 
He heard the crowing of the cock. 
And the barking of the farmer's dog, 
And felt the damp of the river fog. 

That rises after the sun goes down. 

"It was one by the village clock 

When he galloped into Lexington. 
He saw the gilded weather-cock 
Swim in the moonlight as he passed. 
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 
Gaze at him with a spectral glare. 
As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

"It was two by the village clock 

When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 
He heard the bleating of the flock, 
And the twitter of birds among the trees. 
And felt the breath of the morning breeze 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 




The Old North Church 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 105 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 
Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 

Who that day would be lying dead. 
Pierced by a British musket-ball." 

We are perfectly satisfied to imagine that the 
things Longfellow does not describe happened to 
Paul as mere incidents between his arrival at these 
different points. 

In Paul's own account he tells how about ten 
o'clock Dr. Warren sent in great haste for him and 
begged him immediately to set off for Lexington, 
where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and ac- 
quaint them of the movements of the British soldiers 
who were preparing to embark, and who, it was 
thought, intended mischief to these two. "When I 
got to Dr. Warren's house," he writes, "I found he 
had sent an express by land to Lexington — a Mr. 
William Dawes. The Sunday before, by desire of 
Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington to Messrs. 
Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. 
Clark's. I returned at night through Charlestown; 
there I agreed with a Colonel Conant and some other 
gentlemen, that if the British went out by water, we 
would show two lanthorns in the North Church 
steeple; and if by land, one, as a signal; for we were 
apprehensive it would be difficult to cross the Charles 
River, or get over Boston Neck. I left Dr. Warren, 
called upon a friend, and desired him to make the sig- 
nals. I then went home, took my boots and surtout, 
went to the north part of the town, where I had left 
a boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, 
a little to the eastward where the Somerset man-of- 
war lay. It was the young flood, the ship was wind- 



106 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ing and the moon was rising. They landed me on 
the Charlestown side. When I got into the town 
I met Colonel Conant, and several others; they said 
they had seen our signals. I told them what was 
acting, and went to get me a horse; I got a horse of 
Deacon Larkin." This description is so prosaic as 
to be almost irritating to any one who has in mind 
the stanza describing Paul's own restless watching 
for the signals : 

"Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
Now he patted his horse's side, 
Now gazed at the landscape far and near, 
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth. 
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; 
But mostly he watched with eager search 
The belfry tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill. 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height 
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns!" 

No wonder historians have liked to go on making 
this mistake! No logic of necessity can convince one 
that there was any need to have these signals dis- 
played for those watching on the opposite shore lest 
Paul should not, himself, get safely across the river. 
It was his due as the hero of this tempestuous ride to 
have had the suspense of watching for the signals 
himself just as the poet describes it. 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 107 

He goes on: "I set off on a very good horse; it was 
then about eleven o'clock and very pleasant. After 
I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly op- 
posite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two 
men on horseback, under a tree. When I got near 
them I discovered they were British officers. One 
tried to get ahead of me and the other to take me. I 
turned my horse very quick, and galloped towards 
Charlestown Neck, and then pushed for the Medford 
road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to cut 
me off, got into a clay pond, near where the new 
tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went 
through Medford, over the bridge and up to Menot- 
omy. In Medford I waked the Captain of the 
Minute Men; and after that I alarmed almost every 
house, till I got to Lexington. I found Messrs. 
Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I 
told them my errand, and inquired for Mr. Dawes; 
they said he had not been there; I related the story 
of the two officers and supposed that he must have 
been stopped as he ought to have been there before 
me. After I had been there about half an hour, Mr. 
Dawes came; we refreshed ourselves, and set off for 
Concord, to secure the stores, etc., there. We were 
overtaken by a young Dr. Prescott, whom we found 
to be a high son of liberty." 

He joined them in spite of the fact that 
they warned him they might be stopped on 
the way to Concord by British soldiers. They 
had gone about half way, Mr. Dawes and the 
doctor had stopped to alarm the people of a house, 
when the expected happened. "I was about one hun- 
dred rods ahead," says Paul, "when I saw two men, in 



108 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

nearly the same situation as those officers were, near 
Charlestown. I called for the doctor and Mr. 
Dawes to come up; in an instant I was surrounded 
by four — they had placed themselves in a straight 
road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a 
pair of bars on the north side of the road, and two of 
them were under a tree in the pasture. The doctor 
being foremost he came up ; and we tried to get past 
them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, 
they forced us into the pasture — the doctor jumped 
his horse over a low stone wall, and got to Concord. 
I observed a wood at a small distance and made for 
that. When I got there, out started six officers, on 
horseback, and ordered me to dismount; one of them 
who appeared to have the command examined me, 
where I came from, and what my name was? I told 
him. He asked me if I was an express? I an- 
swered in the affirmative. He demanded what time 
I left Boston? I told him; and added, that their 
troops had catched aground in passing the river, and 
that there would be five hundred Americans there in 
a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the 
way up. He imimediately rode toward those who 
stopped us, when all five of them came down upon 
a full gallop; one of them whom I afterwards found 
to be a Major Mitchell of the Fifth Regiment, 
clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, and 
told me he was going to ask me some questions, and 
if I did not give him true answers he would blow my 
brains out. He then asked me similar questions to 
those above. He then ordered me to mount my horse 
after searching me for arms. He then ordered them 
to advance, and to lead me in front. When we got 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 109 

to the road, they turned down toward Lexington. 
When we had got about one mile, the Major rode up 
to the officer that was leading me, and told him to 
give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me the 
Major ordered him if I attempted to run, or any- 
body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode 
till we got near Lexington meeting-house, when the 
militia fired a volley of guns, which appeared to alarm 
them very much. The Major inquired of me how 
far it was to Cambridge, and if there were any other 
road? After some consultation, the Major rode up to 
the Sergeant and asked if his horse was tired? He 
answered him, he was — (he was a Sergeant of Gren- 
adiers and had a small horse). Then, said he, take 
that man's horse; I dismounted and the Sergeant 
mounted my horse, when they all rode towards Lex- 
ington meeting-house. I went across the burying 
ground and some pastures and came to Mr. Clark's 
house where I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams. 
I told them of my treatment, and they concluded to 
go from that house towards Woburn. I went with 
them, and a Mr. Lowell who was clerk to Mr. Han- 
cock. When we got to the house where they in- 
tended to stop Mr. Lowell and myself returned to 
Mr. Clark's, to find what was going on. When we 
got there an elderly man came in; he said he had just 
come from the tavern, that a man had come from Bos- 
ton who said there were no British troops coming. 
Mr. Lowell and myself went towards the tavern, 
when we met a man on a full gallop who told us the 
troops were coming up the rocks. We afterwards 
met another who said they were close by; Mr. Lowell 
asked me to go to the tavern with him, to get a trunk 



no LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. While we 
were getting the trunk we saw the British very near, 
upon a full march. In our way we passed through 
the militia. There were about fifty. When we had 
got about one hundred yards from the meeting- 
house the British troops appeared on both sides of 
the meeting-house. In their front was an officer on 
horseback. They made a short halt: when I saw and 
heard a gun fired, which appeared to be a pistol. 
Then I could distinguish two guns, and then a con- 
tinual roar of musketry; when we made off with the 
trunk." 

So it was that Paul never reached Concord! Only 
a miserable second fiddle, Dr. Prescott. A very 
worthy gentleman, no doubt, who had a full share 
in saving the country that memorable night, but is 
there any one who has read the poem and who does 
not wish it had been Paul? There is some compensa- 
tion here, however, in the fact, not appearing in the 
poem, that Paul saw the first gun fired. That is 
one of the things we may imagine happened between 
"one by the village clock" and "two by the village 
clock," though the poet only makes Paul see 

"the meeting-house windows, blank and bare. 
Gaze at him with a spectral glare." 

Another account of this ride was given by Richard 
Devens, who, as well as Paul Revere, was a mem- 
ber of the Committee of Safety. It antedated Paul 
Revere's account; and differs slightly, but is interest- 
ing as showing what was happening on the other side 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 111 

of the river at the same time that the British were 
preparing their attack from Boston: 

"On the 18th of April, '75, Tuesday, the Com- 
mittee of Safety, of which I was then a member, and 
the Committee of Supplies, sat at Newell's tavern 
at Menotomy. A great number of British officers 
dined at Cambridge. After we had finished the 
business of the day, we adjourned to meet at Wo- 
burn on the morrow ; left to lodge at Newell's, Gerry, 
Orne and Lee. Mr. Watson and myself came off in 
my chaise at sunset. On the road we met a great 
number of British officers and their servants on 
horseback, who had dined that day at Cambridge. 
We rode some way after we met them and then 
turned back and rode through them, went and in- 
formed our friends at Newell's. We stopped there 
until they came up and rode by. We then left our 
friends and I came home, after leaving Mr. Watson 
at his house. I soon received intelligence from Bos- 
ton that the enemy were all in motion and were cer- 
tainly preparing to come out into the country. Soon 
afterwards the signal agreed upon was given: this 
was a lanthorne hung out in the upper window of the 
tower of the North Church towards Charlestown. I 
then sent off an express to inform Messrs. Gerry, etc., 
and Messrs. Hancock and Adams, who I knew were 
at the Rev. Mr. Clark's at Lexington, that the enemy 
were certainly coming out. I kept watch at the ferry 
to watch for the boats till about eleven o'clock, when 
Paul Revere came over and informed that the T. 
[troops] were actually in the boats. I procured a 
horse and sent off Paul Revere to give the intelli- 
gence at Menotomy and Lexington. He was taken 



112 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

by the British officers before he got to Lexington and 
detained till near day" — an error, of course. 

Besides the need which has troubled the consciences 
of the historians to tell the "true story of Paul Re- 
vere," there has been a lengthened controversy upon 
who was the "friend" to hang out the lanterns and 
where was the church in which they were hung ; points 
not brought up by the poet's inaccuracy this time, but 
because of the vagueness of both Revere and Devens 
on the subject in speaking simply of the North 
Church, and a "friend," without mentioning the name. 

The church which bears the inscription commem- 
orating the event is Christ Church, though its claims 
since first brought forward in 1873 have been dis- 
puted. Dr. Eaton wrote a historical account of this 
church in 1824, but said nothing about its connection 
with Paul Revere's ride. Dr. Henry Burroughs, 
however, not only claimed this church as the one with 
which the incident was connected, in a historical dis- 
course in the year above mentioned, but he declared 
that the "friend" who hung out the lanterns was 
Robert Newman, in 1775 the sexton of the church. 
Drake's "Landmarks" also connected the incident 
with Christ Church. Not until December, 1876, 
when the city authorities decided to put a tablet upon 
this church, were its claims disputed. Richard 
Frothingham then declared that the true place where 
the lanterns were displayed was the old North Meet- 
ing-house in North Square, which was pulled down 
during the siege for fuel. Then followed a letter in 
the Daily Advertiser from Rev. John Lee Watson, 
and comments by Charles Deane, in which it is shown 
beyond a doubt that Christ Church was popularly 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 113 

known as the North Church. But Mr. Watson con- 
fused matters somewhat by declaring that the friend 
who hung the lanterns up was a Boston merchant, 
Mr. John Pulling, a warden of the church, and not 
the sexton. Mr. W. W. Wheildon in 1878 brought 
forward the claims of Newman again, but confirms 
the opinion that the church was Christ Church. To 
sum up ; who the friend was, still remains in doubt, but 
Christ Church is generally accepted as the place, and 
consequently on Oct. 17, 1878, the tablet was put up 
on the front of the church, with the inscription, 
"The Signal Lanterns of Paul Revere displayed in 
the steeple of this church, April 18, 1775, warned the 
country of the march of the British troops to Lexing- 
ton and Concord." 

This church, built in 1723, was the second Episcopal 
church in Boston. The original spire was blown 
down in a gale in 1804, so the devout tourist can gaze 
only upon the simulacrum of the spire from which the 
beacon fraught with such big meaning flashed. The 
present spire was built in likeness to the old one by 
Charles Bulfinch, the architect of State-house fame, 
but has suffered not a "sea change," but a clock 
change, some alterations having been necessary to ac- 
commodate the present clock. 

In the palmy days of the North End, Christ 
Church, built on rising ground on Salem Street, must 
have been a conspicuous object in the surrounding 
neighborhood, and, of course, could readily be seen 
from the low land of Charlestown opposite the North 
End. Now it is buried in a labyrinth of crooked 
streets lined with tenements and shops and given over 
to the Italians, and the Russian and Polish Jews. It is 



114 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

peculiarly fitting that these last should find an asylum 
in the quarter of the city so identified with the inaug- 
uration of our own freedom. The Italians, however, 
give the local color to the neighborhood. One sees 
bits of bright yellow blinking in the sunshine from 
behind half shut blinds, women stand about with gay 
shawls and head coverings, and if one be so disposed, 
he can dine on yards of maccheroni smothered in toma- 
toes and read Dante henceforth with an Italian ac- 
cent; or better still, he may attend a performance of 
Marionettes in a stuffy little room full of men smok- 
ing. The heroes of Ariosto stalk about the stage 
and fight and make love with the nervous tension and 
precision so characteristic of Marionettes, while from 
above is heard the voice of one reading. I was never 
at such a performance, but "it's as if I saw it all," as 
Browning makes one of his Dramatis Personce say of 
Italy itself. 

Not far from the church, on North Square, is the 
house where Paul Revere lived for the greater part 
of his life. A short time ago it was "restored" and 
now looks as it did in the days when Paul exhibited 
transparencies from its upper windows, cartooning 
the political events of the time. It was upon the oc- 
casion of the first anniversary of the Boston Massacie 
that this interesting exhibition took place and great- 
ly impressed the crowds below. A newspaper of the 
time describes them: "One of these transparencies 
represented Christopher Snider, with one of his fin- 
gers in his wound, endeavoring to stop the blood from 
issuing therefrom; near him his friends weeping; at a 
small distance a monumental pyramid with his name 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 115 

on the top and the names of those killed on the fifth 
of March around the base. There was an inscripticMi 
which read : 

" 'Snider's pale ghost fresh bleeding stands, 
And vengeance for his death demands.' " 

In another window, under the legend "Foul Play," 
were shown the British soldiers drawn up in firing 
line, with dead and wounded lying about, blood pour- 
ing from their wounds. A third transparency repre- 
sented America, in the form of a female figure, sit- 
ting on a tree stump with one foot on the head of a 
prostrate grenadier grasping a serpent. The Bos- 
ton Gazette reported that "the spectators were struck 
with solemn silence and their countenances were cov- 
ered with a melancholy glow." 

A truly remarkable man was Paul Revere. He 
had his finger in so many of Dame America's pies 
that we are constantly being reminded of him. 

If we pick up some book upon Boston in the early 
days we shall almost surely find among the illustra- 
tions one or more of his engravings. We are liable 
at any time to meet some one who has a silver tea-pot 
or silver knee-buckles made by him; when we hear 
the church bells ring we remember that Paul Revere 
cast the first church bell ever cast in America for the 
"New Brick Church." And who but he furnished 
all the copper fixtures for the United States frigate 
Constitution, or, as it was nicknamed, "Old Iron- 
sides. 

Finally we cannot even cast our gaze upon the 
State House without remembering that as a grand 



116 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

mason he helped to lay its cornerstone, nor yet raise 
our eyes upwards to its dome without remembering 
that once upon a time he re-coppered it. To round 
out his usefulness he served his country as a soldier 
and engraved and printed the paper money of Massa- 
chusetts. If he had lived in the days of the Italian 
Renaissance he would probably have also painted 
Madonnas and written sonnets. He had, however, 
that instinctive commercialism which was to reach 
abnormal development in the American character 
in a hundred years, and this it was, no doubt, that 
made him successively engraver, cartoonist, gold- 
smith, soldier, bell and cannon founder, copper- 
rolling mill owner. Even as messenger on the Com- 
mittee of Safety, after the Lexington episode, he de- 
manded and received "pay." 

The quaint old house, built in the Dutch style with 
second story projecting beyond the first, and with 
small diamond-paned windows, looks crowded and 
out of place shoulder to shoulder with the much la- 
ter shop buildings now standing on either side of it. 

Not long since I had the pleasure of threading the 
mazes of the "North End" with a party in a friend's 
automobile, the express purpose being to follow as 
closely as possible Paul's famous ride. Having viewed 
first the house, then the church, we made our way 
with some difficulty through the narrow streets, where 
groups of voluble Italians — women in gay colors., 
and men — were talking and gesticulating, and often 
only lounging, to the bridge connecting Boston with 
Charlestown. The place where the British warship 
Somerset must have been anchored, not far from 
the point where Paul embarked for his stealthy row 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 117 

across the river, is now such a mass of docks and low 
bridging for railroad tracks that the broad reach of 
the Charles seems almost obliterated. It was half a 
mile across in those days ; now in less time than it takes 
to tell it, we were over the river and in Charlestown, 
with elevated trains whizzing overhead, and trolleys 
blocking our headlong career in a manner almost 
as exasperating as the British interferences with 
Paul's ride on horseback must have been. We fol- 
lowed the main street to "Medford town," but foimd 
it difficult up to that point to imagine ourselves in 
Paul Revere's shoes. For one thing we were not in 
the least sure that we were really following in his 
footsteps. From Medford to Lexington, we knew 
ourselves to be on the identical road, because an oblig- 
ing sign, "This is the road Paul Revere took to Lex- 
ington," furnished us with the needed information. 
The country along* this road is still to a great extent 
"open," so, forgetting the fact of daylight and an 
automobile, we could very well imagine ourselves in a 
Revere mood. Along the road are still standing some 
of the old houses whose inmates he aroused nearly 
one hundred and thirty-five years ago. 

The closer one approaches to Lexington the more 
numerous become the houses upon which some legend 
is fastened, connecting it with the events of Lexing- 
ton's great day. The most important is the "Mon- 
roe Tavern" on the left of the road, where Lord 
Percy with his reinforcement of twelve hundred men 
and two cannon took his stand, the afternoon of 
April 19, and prevented the complete rout of the 
British army in its retreat from Concord. It was 
an early spring that year for a New England spring. 



118 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

the cherry trees were already in bloom, and the Brit- 
ish, who had been fighting a running fight for ten 
miles, dropped down when they reached the shelter 
of the "Monroe'Tavern," completely overcome by heat 
and fatigue. Cruelly were their sufferings revenged 
by the bayoneting of the harmless and the firing of 
the houses which followed, but why bring up this hor- 
rible scene? It is pleasanter to remember a story told 
by Howells about Lord Percy's portrait which hangs 
in the Lexington library. Howells was spending the 
summer in Lexington and naturally was much in the 
library, where he had the "opportunity" to answer the 
questions of the various visitors who came in to look 
at the revolutionary relics kept there. He relates 
that the portrait of Lord Percy, young and hand- 
some, always attracted the greatest interest, no Amer- 
icans ever seeming to realize that he was not in sym- 
pathy with them. Howells noticed especially one 
boy who gazed and gazed at the portrait for a long 
time and finally went off with a sigh of wonder, say- 
ing "And he was a Britisher!" 

Soon we came upon the irregular triangle forming 
the green, about which the chief interest centers. The 
meeting-house which figures in the poem and in Re- 
vere's own account is no longer there, but the hallowed 
spot is marked by a most original monument. It is 
a single block of red granite, and represents a reading 
desk with a closed polished book of granite upon it. 
The last of the three meeting-houses built on this spot 
was burned in 1846. The desk is supposed to face ex- 
actly as the pulpit did in at least two of the meeting- 
houses. Upon sunken polished panels, front and 
back, are recorded events connected with the civic and 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 119 

religious history of a hundred years, now completed 
as the closed book is meant to symbolize. Another 
characteristic monument is a boulder, said to weigh 
about eighteen tons. It was brought from the woods 
on the old Muzzey place in the western part of the 
town, a distance of two miles. Only the front of this 
has been cut, the remainder of the rock being left in 
its natural state. An old musket such as the Minute- 
men bore, is carved on the face with a powder horn 
above it, while underneath is an inscription giving the 
words used by Captain Parker to his men as they 
stood there — some forty or fifty of them facing a 
regiment of six hundred British soldiers: *' Stand your 
ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they 
want to have a war let it begin here." The musket is 
intended to point the direction of Captain Parker's 
company. We turn from these modern memorials to 
the old monument in honor of the men who fell, upon 
which has recently been placed a tablet setting forth 
that the bodies of those who fell were first buried in 
the old cemetery, and after lying there for sixty years 
the remains were gathered up and brought here to 
be buried at the foot of the monument. Still more 
are we brought into touch with the past when we 
come upon the old, old houses, that were standing 
about the green on that eventful day. One is the 
"Buckman Tavern," where the Provincials mustered 
when the alarm was given by Paul, and whither he 
went with Mr. Lowell to get Mr. Hancock's trunk- 
ful of papers. It is a quaint and picturesque old 
house with a pretty, old-fashioned garden. 

Upon another house is a tablet relating that here 
lived Jonathan Harrington, who was wounded in the 



120 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

skirmish which took place in the sight of its windows, 
and how he succeeded in dragging himself to his own 
doorstep, and there died in his wife's arms. As an 
English lady who was of the party said with beau- 
tiful sympathy in her voice, "the only comfort is that 
by this time she is dead, too." 

But we must take up the role of Paul Revere again 
and hasten on to the Rev. Jonas Clark's, which is not 
far off on a road to the right. It is known as the 
Hancock house. It was built by the Rev. John Han- 
cock, later enlarged by his son Thomas, and finally 
bought by the Rev. Mr. Clark, who married a grand- 
daughter of John Hancock's. We alighted from the 
vehicle which stood us in place of the good horse 
from Mr. Larkin's, and entered with mingled feel- 
ings the room where Paul had delivered his message 
to the two men most vitally concerned in the com- 
ing encounter, Hancock and Adams, upon whose 
heads a price had been set. This house is preserved 
as a relic of the Revolution, and is filled with inter-, 
esting mementos. Among other things are a mus- 
ket and a drum which were used at the fight on the 
green, the pocketbook carried by one of the men who 
rowed Paul Revere across the Charles, and one of 
Revere's o-vvn engravings of the Boston massacre. To 
speak of these simple things in cold print means so 
little! But even the nonchalant, blase, latter-day 
Bostonian, with brains satiated by knowledge, and 
emotions chilled through lack of faith, feels stirred 
by these tokens of an event marking one of the most 
significant strides of the human spirit in its long and 
tortuous march toward enlightenment. Something of 
the feeling that all Americans have when contemplat- 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 121 

ing the daring and pluck of that handful of men at 
Lexington comes out in what Ilowells has to say. 
"It ['The Buckman Tavern'] afforded a rendez- 
vous for the Provincials when the alarm of the Brit- 
ish approach was first sounded by Paul Revere, and 
there most of the men lingered and waited subject to 
their captain's orders, after he had begun to doubt 
the truth of the rumor. The interval must have been 
trying to those unwarlike men, but they all answered 
the drum when a messenger galloped up with the 
news that the King's troops were right upon them. 
Some of them had gone to bed again in their homes 
beside the green, and they left their wives and chil- 
dren sleeping almost within sound of a whisper from 
the spot where they loosely formed on the grass be- 
fore their doors. Independence was scarcely dreamt 
of: all that the villagers were clear of was their right 
as Englishmen, and they stood there upon that, with 
everything else around them in a dark far thicker than 
the morning gloom out of which the redcoats flashed 
at the other corner of the green. Major Pitcairne 
called a halt at some thirty rods, and riding forward 
swore at the damned rebels and bade them disperse. 
They stood firm, and he ordered his men to fire; the 
soldiers hesitated; but when he drew his pistols and 
emptied them at the Provincials they discharged a 
volley and eight of our people fell. They were not 
a tithe of the enemy in number, and it is doubtful if 
they returned the fire; then Captain Parker called a 
retreat and those who were unhurt made their escape, 
to join later in the long running fight through M'hich 
the Provincials all day harassed the flight of the Brit- 
ish from Concord back to Boston. Major Pitcairne 



122 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

had dispersed a riot and shed the first blood in a seven 
years' war. The dead men lay on the grass where 
their children had played a few hours before." 

From the "Hancock House," we followed the road 
on to Concord, noting the spot about half way be- 
tween the two towns where Paul Revere was captured 
and was led back toward Lexington. The only 
event to disturb the present-day peacefulness and 
remind us that tragedy still stalks abroad in the world 
was the immolation under our car of a chicken which, 
suddenly seized with some form of dementia, rushed 
in front of the "speeding" machine, and was cut off 
in the flower of its youth. Soon after we met an auto- 
wagon belonging to a famous piano concern of Bos- 
ton. Later, upon our return, we beheld the crew of 
the auto-wagon roasting the chicken over a slow fire 
which had been built by the roadside. We were glad 
of this and felt better contented to know that the 
chicken had reached its legitimate goal. Its ghost 
was laid, so to speak, although it had not received 
the last rites due it from its owners. This semi-pa- 
thetic, semi-humorous incident will mark more dis- 
tinctly in our minds the locality of Paul Revere's cap- 
ture than any lettered milestone. 

Whatever its slight inaccuracies may be, it is a 
real bit of history which Longfellow gives us in "Paul 
Revere's Ride." In the equally popular poem, "The 
Courtship of Miles Standish," he has developed from 
a bare statement of fact, a pleasing romance, calling 
for considerable imagination in the portrayal of the 
characters. These belong in a historical environment 
dear to the heart of New England, and this the poet 
reproduces with faithfulness as far as the atmosphere 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 123 

is concerned. We see the little, very young town of 
Plymouth with its one street guarded by a fort which 
was used also as a church, set down close by the sea 
in the midst of wilds haunted by the Indians. His- 
tory tells how, when the Pilgrim Fathers gathered to- 
gether to confer about their simple state affairs on 
the hill, they were time after time interrupted by the 
sudden apparition of an Indian or a party of Indians. 
None of these, however, proved very fierce. Upon 
one of these occasions, the chronicler says: "Over 
against us two or three savages presented themselves, 
that made semblance of daring us, as we thought. So 
Captain Standish with another, with their muskets, 
went over to them, with two of the Master's mates 
that follow them without arms, having two muskets 
with them. They whetted and rubbed their arrows 
and strings, and made show of defiance; but when 
our men drew near them they ran away." Pictu- 
resque and stirring is the incident of Samoset, boldly 
approaching the settlement, alone, and calling out 
"Welcome" to the newly arrived Pilgrims. He be- 
came a staunch friend, introducing them to his tribe, 
the Massasoyts, who proved most loyal neighbors. 
The contemporary descriptions of these friends of 
Samoset, which he speedily brought to confer with 
the Pilgrims, gives a vivid picture of these gentle 
"salvages." 

"They had every man a deer's skin on him, and 
the principle of them had a wild-cat's skin, or such 
like, on one arm. They had most of them long hosen 
up to their groins, close made, and above their groins 
to their waist another leather. They are of com- 
plexion like our English gipseys; no hair or very 



124 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

little on their faces; on their heads long hair to their 
shoulders, only cut before; some trussed up before 
with a feather, broad-wise, like a fan; another a fox- 
tail." 

When the King and his followers came to ratify 
the alliance with the Pilgrims considerable ceremony 
was observed. The pageant, with its display of one 
green rug and three or four cushions and its military 
music of trumpet and drum, must have caused not a 
little excitement among the hundred or so inhabitants 
of the small village. After various preliminaries, in- 
cluding the presentation to the Indian King of the 
terms of the alliance, the King "came over the brook, 
and some twenty men following him, leaving all their 
bows and arrows behind them. We kept six or seven 
as hostages for our messenger. Captain Standish 
and Master Williamson met the King at the brook, 
with half a dozen musketeers. They saluted him, and 
he them; so one going over, the one on the one side 
and the other on the other, conducted him to a house 
then in building, where we placed a green rug and 
three or four cushions. Then instantly came our gov- 
ernor, with drum and trumpet after him, and some 
few musketeers. After salutations our governor 
kissing his hand, the King kissed him; and so they sat 
down." 

It is a pity that such auspicious beginnings with 
the Indians could not have insured eternal peace; 
there had, however, been premonitions of another 
temper among some of the other tribes. If the 
debonair Samoset came with a greeting of wel- 
come, there was also the unfriendly gang of Indians 
who carried terror before them with the unearthly 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 125 

cry "Woach, woach, ha ha hach woach," none the 
less dreadful because nobody knew what it meant. 
Not far distant was the day when the Indians yearned 
to sweep the paleface from off the face of the earth, 
and succeeded in accomplishing the purpose to an 
appalling extent. The paleface unfortunately 
brought it upon himself — not as represented by the 
good people of Plymouth, but by the bad people of 
Wessagusset, now Weymouth. The recklessness of 
this colony settled by Weston shortly after Plymouth, 
came near to destroying all the good influences of the 
Plymouth colony. These people were not only im- 
provident, but unruly. To keep from starvation they 
were driven to hire themselves out among the In- 
dians that they might share their food. In the end 
they actually robbed the Indians, who naturally 
became exasperated and plotted vengeance. The 
belligerent spirit was whetted by the success of the 
massacre in Virginia, when the villages along the 
James River were set upon and the inhabitants to the 
number of four hundred were cut off by death-deal- 
ing Indian tomahawks in the short space of an hour. 
Such news might well alarm the New England settlers. 
This is the pass to which Indian affairs had come 
when Longfellow introduces to us Miles Standish. 
It was on the 23rd of March, 1623, that Standish was 
called to the council mentioned in the lines: 

"Meanwhile the choleric captain strode wrathful away 
to the council. 

Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his 
coming ; 

Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in de- 
portment." 



126 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

The account in the old chronicles tells how the gov- 
ernor laid the evidence before them when the unani- 
mous voice declared for war. Captain Standish was 
to take so many men as he thought sufficient to make 
his party good against all the Indians in Massachu- 
setts Bay, and he was to adopt the Indian guerilla 
tactics instead of open defiance. There is something 
almost grimly humorous in the thought of an army of 
eight men going forth to battle with all the Indians 
of the region; yet so it was. Miles Standish set out 
on his march to Weymouth with eight men and an 
Indian friend and guide, Hobomok. Governor 
Winslow's account of the Pecksuot incident, told by 
Longfellow, is interesting as the rough material from 
which the poet carved his gem in the way of dramatic 
narrative. He relates that Pecksuot came to 
Hobomok and told him "he understood that the cap- 
tain was come to kill himself and the rest of the sav- 
ages there. 'Tell him,' said he, 'we know it, but fear 
him not, neither will we shun him; but let him begin 
when he dare, he shall not take us at unawares.' 
Many times after, divers of them severally or few to- 
gether, came to the plantation to him, where they 
would whet and sharpen the points of their knives 
before his face and use many other insulting gestures 
and speeches. Amongst the rest Wituwamat 
bragged of the excellency of his knives before his face, 
and used many other insulting gestures and speeches. 
On the end of the handle there was pictured a woman's 
face; 'but,' said he, 'I have another at home, where- 
with I have killed both French and English, and that 
hath a man's face on it, and by and by it should eat, 
but not speak.' Also Pecksuot, being a man of 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 127 

greater stature than the captain, told him though he 
were a great captain, yet he was but a little man; 
'and,' said he, 'though I be no sachem, yet I am a 
man of great strength and courage!' These things 
the captain observed, yet bore with patience for the 
present. 

"On the next day, seeing he could not get many of 
them together at once, and this Pecksuot and Witu- 
wamat both together with another man, and a youth 
of some eighteen years of age, which was brother to 
Wituwamat, and, villain-like, trod in his steps, daily 
putting many tricks upon the weaker sort of men, and 
the door being fast shut, began himself with Pecksuot, 
and snatching his own knife from his neck, though 
with much struggling, killed him therewith, the point 
whereoff he had made as sharp as a needle and ground 
the back also to an edge. Wituwamat and the other 
man the rest killed and took the youth, whom the cap- 
tain caused to be hanged." 

The rattlesnake-skin episode which Longfellow 
makes a striking incident of the council scene really 
occurred some time previous to this in January, 1622, 
and is related by Governor Winslow in his own slow 
manner: 

"At length came one of them to us [the Naragan- 
setts], who was sent by Conanacus, their chief sachem 
or king, accompanied with one Tokamahamon, a 
friendly Indian. This messenger inquired for Tis- 
quantum, our interpreter, who not being at home, 
seemed rather to be glad than sorry, and leaving for 
him a bundle of new arrows, lapped in a rattlesnake's 
skin, desired to depart with all expedition. But our 
governor not knowing what to make of this strange 



128 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

carriage and comparing it with what we had former- 
ly heard, committed him to the custody of Captain 
Standish, hoping now to know some certainty of that 
we so often heard, either by his own relation to us, 
or to Tisquantum, at his return, desiring myself, hav- 
ing special familiarity with the other fore-named In- 
dian, to see if I could learn anything from him ; whose 
answer was sparingly to this effect, that he could not 
certainly tell us, but thought they were enemies to us. 
"When Tisquantum returned and the arrows were 
delivered and the manner of the messenger's carriage 
related, he signified to the governor that to send the 
rattlesnake skin in that manner imported enmity, and 
that it was no better than a challenge. Thereupon, 
after some deliberation, the governor stuffed the skin 
with powder and shot, and sent it back, returning no 
less defiance to Conanacus, assuring him if he had 
shipping now present, thereby to send his men to 
Nanohigganset, they should not need to come so far 
by land to us; yet withal showing that they should 
never come unwelcome or unlooked for. This mes- 
sage was sent by an Indian and delivered in such sort, 
as it was no small terror to this savage king, inso- 
much that he would not once touch the powder and 
shot, or suffer it to stay in his house or country. 
Whereupon the messenger refusing it, another took it 
up; and having been posted from place to place a 
long time, at length came whole back again." 

"Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern 
and defiant, 
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious 
in aspect; 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 129 

While on the table before them was lyinff unopened 
a Bible, 

Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed 
in Holland, 

And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake 
glittered. 

Filled, like a quiver, with arrows ; a signal and chal- 
lenge of warfare, 

Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy 
tongues of defiance." 

After some debate in regard to what is to be done, 
it is Standish, not the governor, who returns the chal- 
lenge, according to Longfellow, and in a manner far 
more impressive than history has it : 

*' 'Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it per- 
taineth. 
War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is 

righteous, 
Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer 
the challenge!' 

"Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden con- 
temptuous gesture. 
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder 

and bullets 
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the 

savage. 
Saying, in thundering tones: 'Here, take it! this is 

your answer!' 
Silently out of the room then glided the glistening 

savage. 
Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself like 

a serpent, 
Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths 

of the forest." 



130 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

The record of the love-story is very slight. It was 
handed down by tradition until about 1812, when per- 
haps the first printed narrative appeared in the Rev. 
Timothy Alden's "Collection of American Epitaphs 
and Inscriptions." Longfellow's version of the story 
has itself taken on almost the authenticity of a tradi- 
tion. Not long ago I chanced upon a history of the 
Pilgrims, which remarked that no doubt the poet had 
looked carefully into the records of the time and had 
been minutely accurate. It then went on to tell as 
history the account given in the poem. How much 
the poet embellished and developed the legend may be 
seen by comparing it with the Rev. Timothy Alden's 
narrative : 

"It is well known that of the first company consist- 
ing of one hundred and one, about one-half died in 
six months after the landing in consequence of the 
hardships they were called to encounter. Mrs. Rose 
Standish, consort of Captain Standish, departed this 
life on the twenty-ninth of January, 1621. This cir- 
cumstance is mentioned as an introduction to the fol- 
lowing anecdote, which has been carefully handed 
down by tradition. In a very short time after the de- 
cease of Mrs. Standish, the captain was led to think 
that if he could obtain Miss Priscilla Mullins, a 
daughter of Mr. William Mullins, the break in his 
family would be happily repaired. He, therefore, 
according to the custom of those times, sent to ask 
Mr. Mullins' permission to visit his daughter. John 
Alden, the messenger, went and faithfully communi- 
cated the wishes of the captain. 

"The old gentleman did not object, as he might 
have done, on account of the recency of Captain 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 131 

Standish's bereavement. He said it was perfectly- 
agreeable to him, but the young lady must also be 
consulted. The damsel was then called into the 
room, and John Alden, who is said to have been a 
man of most excellent form, with a fair and ruddy 
complexion, arose, and, in a very courteous and pre- 
possessing manner, delivered his errand. Miss Mul- 
lins listened with respectful attention, and at last 
after a considerable pause, fixing her eyes upon him 
with an open and pleasant countenance, said: 
'Prithee, John, why do you not speak for yourself?' 
He blushed and bowed, and took his leave, but with 
a look which indicated more than his diffidence would 
permit him otherwise to express. However, he soon 
renewed his visit, and it was not long before their nup- 
tials were celebrated in ample form. From them are 
descended all of the name, Alden, in the United 
States. What report he made to his constituent after 
the first interview, tradition does not unfold: but it 
is said, how true the writer knows not, that the cap- 
tain never forgave them to the day of his death." 

The chronicles of the time give only the military 
doings of Miles Standish, but even from these one 
gathers much of the interesting personality of the 
man, who had gained his experiences in war against 
that most terrible of all foes, the Duke of Alva. It 
is strange what a mere chance it was that caused his 
fortunes to become so indissolubly bound up with 
those of this country. Sent to the Netherlands as a 
commissioned officer in an English regiment by 
Queen Elizabeth, he fought against the cruel armies 
of the Inquisition. After peace was declared he re- 
mained in the Netherlands, and, as has been suggest- 



132 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ed, may have become interested in the fierce theological 
disputes of the Calvinists and the Armenians which 
raged in the Low Countries from 1609 to 1620. He 
was not himself a churchman, but whatever the cause, 
he attached himself to the English exiles, who in 
Leyden had taken refuge from the persecution of the 
English, and when they sailed for America in the 
Mayflower, he came with them, fortunately — else the 
Plymouth colony might have met the same terrible 
fate as the Virginia colony. How much he became 
interested in religious affairs is shown by the inven- 
tory of his library, consisting of about forty books, 
of which twenty were devotional or religious. There 
were also the books for the soldier — Cesar's "Com- 
mentaries," "Bariffe's Artillery," as Longfellow de- 
scribes, and not one Bible but three: 

"Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, and 
among them 

Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and 
for binding; 

Bariffe's Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries of 
Caesar, 

Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of 
London, 

And, as if guarded by these, between them was 
standing the Bible. 

Musing a moment before them. Miles Standish 
paused, as if doubtful 

Which of the three he should choose for his consola- 
tion and comfort. 

Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous cam- 
paigns of the Romans, 

Or the artillery practice, designed for belligerent 
Christians." 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 133 

After the manner of titles in the days of Queen 
Elizabeth, the title of this last was interminable — 
almost a course in military tactics by itself: "Mili- 
tary Discipline; or the young Artillery man, where- 
in is discoursed and shown the Postures, both of Mus- 
ket and Pike, the exactest way, etc., together with the 
Exercise of the Foot in their Motions, with much va- 
riety: As also, diverse and several Forms for the Im- 
batteling small or great Bodies demonstrated by the 
number of a single company with their Reducements. 
Very necessary for all such as are studious in the Art 
Military. Whereunto is also added the Postures 
and Beneficiall Use of the Halfe Pike Joyned with 
the Musket. With the way to* draw up the Swedish 
Brigade." 

Although according to the tradition. Miles Stand- 
ish never forgave John Alden, history says that he 
married Barbara, the orphan sister of Rose Stand- 
ish, who was left in England and for whom he sent. 
Thus it seems quite probable that he was reconciled, as 
Longfellow puts it, with his old friend, John Alden, 
who in the assignments of houses and the division into 
households in 1621, is found under the roof presided 
over by Captain Miles Standish, the first house under 
Fort Hill. 

The more one can gather about Miles Standish — 
his courage, his loyalty, his good sense and his skill, 
the more one feels how much his memory should be 
honored. One experiences a slight sense of irrita- 
tion at Priscilla, not that she did not love him, but 
that she should have shown so little appreciation of 
what his services meant in the preservation of the 
colony, as to be afraid of him on account of his valor. 



134 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"Thus the first battle was fought and won by the 

stalwart Miles Standish. 
When the tidings thereof were brought to the village 

of Plymouth, 
And as a trophy of war the head of the brave 

Wattawamat 
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which was at once 

a church and a fortress, 
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and 

took courage. 
Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of 

terror, 
Thanking God in her heart that she had not mar- 
ried Miles Standish ; 
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from 

his battles, 
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and 

reward of his valor.'* 

Appreciation of the services of Miles Standish to 
his country finally took very palpable shape in the 
formation of a Monument Association in 1871, when 
the site for a monument on Monument Hill at Dux- 
bury was consecrated with great ceremony. The 
orator of the occasion was General Horace Binney 
whose eloquence brings out with peculiar emphasis 
just what manner of man this Miles Standish was: 

"With the memory of one act of singularly resolute 
daring when, in obedience to the Colonial orders to 
crush a great Indian conspiracy, he took a squad of 
eight picked men into the forests, and deemed it 
prudent to kill the most turbulent warrior with his 
own hands, we may imagine how the Pilgrim sol- 
dier, friend and associate of Brewster, disciple of the 
saintly Robinson, rose from the perusal of one of the 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 135 

old Bibles, or of "Ball on Faith," "Sparks Against 
Heresie," or "Dodd on the Lord's Supper," to stab 
Pecksuot to the heart with his own knife ; a giant who 
had taunted him with his small stature, in almost the 
very words of Goliath in his insulting sneer at David, 
long before ; and to cut off the head of Watuwamat, 
which bloody trophy the elders had ordered him to 
bring home with him. 

"Yet the all-daring contempt for peril, the rough- 
ness of temper, the masterly economy with which 
Standish saved human life by consummate indiffer- 
ence to personal homicide upon prudent occasions, 
his power of breathing his own fiery heart into a 
handful of followers, till he made them an army able 
to withstand a host in the narrow gates of death, 
would lead us to expect such a colleague for the 
saintly Brewster as little as we should expect to see 
Sheridan prominent among the Methodists. 

"From the first anchorage Captain Standish as the 
soldier of the company was charged with all deeds of 
adventure. At first certain grave elders were sent 
with him for counsel. But ultimately, his repute in 
affairs, both civil and military, was such that he was 
for many years the treasurer of the colony, and during 
a period of difficulty their agent in England. They 
invested him with the general command. Even in 
extreme old age — the very year that he died 'very 
ancient and full of dolorous pains' — he received his 
last and fullest commission against new enemies, his 
old friends, the Dutch." 

When the cornerstone of the monument was laid, 
October 7, 1872, there were ten thousand people 
present to witness the ceremonies in which partici- 



136 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

pated the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company 
of Boston, and several Masonic lodges. Under the 
cornerstone was placed a metallic plate with the fol- 
lowing inscription : 

The Corner Stone 

of the 

Standish Memorial 

in commemoration of the character and services 

of 

Captain Myles Standish, 

The First Commissioned Military Officer of 

New England 

Laid on the smnmit of Captain's Hill in Duxbury 

under 

the Superintendance of 

The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of 

Massachusetts, 

In presence of 

The Standish Monument Association, 

By the 
M. W. Grand Lodge of Free Masons, 
of Massachusetts 
M. W. Sereno D. Nickerson, Grand Master 
On the seventh day of October, A. D. 1872. Being 
the Two Hundred and Fifty-second Year since 
the First Settlement of New England 
By the 
Pilgrim Fathers. 
Site consecrated August 17, 1871. 
Association incorporated May 4, 1872. 
Association organized and ground broken June 
17, 1872. 
Corner of foundation laid August 9, 1872. 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 137 

The handsome youth, Jolin Alden, grew also to be 
a very important personage in the Plymouth colony. 
His qualities, though not of so picturesque a nature as 
those of Miles Standish, were* of equal importance 
in assuring the success of the colony. He appears 
first as one of its financial backers or "Undertakers," 
as they were called, of which there were eight. The 
responsibility of the position was great, for if any- 
thing should happen that liabilities could not be met, 
and such was only too likely to be the case in an ad- 
venturous undertaking of this sort — the debtors' 
prison was a horror to be reckoned with in the mother- 
land whence they had fled. He never, however, 
shirked the burden, remaining an "Undertaker" until 
the debt was wiped out, in 1646. As agent for the 
colony, he had a general oversight of business affairs. 
He was surveyor of the highways also, and in 1633 
he was a member of the board of assistants to the gov- 
ernor. He held this post on and off until, in 1650, he 
was again appointed on this board and held it until 
his death in 1686. He was also almost continuously 
deputy from the town of Duxbury which he repre- 
sented on the Colonial Councils. Though identified 
chiefly with the administrative duties belonging to 
times of peace, he was evidently not behindhand in 
times of war, joining not only in the councils of war, 
but being enrolled along with his two sons, John and 
Joseph, among the eighty Duxbury men forming its 
military organization. 

To his administrative abilities he added the qualities 
of piety and godliness, proven to all posterity forever 
by the imprint of his own pious thumb on his own 
Bible preserved in Plymouth Hall. That he must 



138 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

have had a winning personality is rendered certain 
by the golden opinions which were current about him. 
Gentle and faithful in character, and the tallest and 
handsomest man in the colony. Such was the John 
Alden the world knew. The John Alden Priscilla 
knew we find, as portrayed by the imagination 
of the poet, more fascinating, if hardly so 
talented a being. As a hero of romance the all- 
consuming interest of his life is his love for Priscilla. 
He comes to America solely for the purpose of being 
near Priscilla, and having decided to be a loyal friend 
to Miles Standish and crush out his own love, he de- 
termines to sail back to England on the Mayflower — 

"Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is 

or canvas, 
Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would 

rise and pursue him. 
But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of 

Priscilla 
Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all 

that was passing. 
Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his 

intention, 
Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring 

and patient, 
That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from 

its purpose. 
As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is 

destruction. 
Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mys- 
terious instincts! 
Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are 

moments. 
Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall 

adamantine ! 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 139 

'Here I remain!' he exclaimed, as he looked at the 

heavens above him, 
Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the 

mist and the madness, 
Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was stagger- 
ing headlong. 
'Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible 

presence 
Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting 

her weakness ; 
Yes! as my foot was the first that stepped on this 

rock at the landing. 
So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at 

the leaving!' " 

Priscilla's history does not seem to have been writ- 
ten. It is merely recorded that Priscilla was the 
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mullins, and that she had 
one brother. They all came over in the Mayflower, 
accompanied by one servant. Father, mother and 
brother all died the first winter and Priscilla was left 
an orphan. 

Though the whole development of the love story 
and the portrayal of the feelings of the three char- 
acters in it are imaginary, the poet has taken what 
hints he found to build upon for the general presen- 
tation of the qualities distinguishing Miles Standish 
and John Alden. 

The portrayal of Miles is naturally more in tune 
with history than that of John. Even his ancestry 
and the injustice he suffered through not receiving his 
inheritance are cleverly brought in as reasons by John 
why Priscilla should admire him and accept the offer 
of his hand. John is so pre-eminently the handsome 
young lover, "fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate 



140 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Saxon complexion," that the thought of him in the 
prosaic aspect of the backer in a financial way of the 
colony is wisely not brought forward. The his- 
torical setting to the love story is not slavishly accurate 
as to succession of events, but it is a wonderfully true 
picture of the life of the colony, divided between the 
exercise of piety, warfare with the Indians, and the 
building up of a means of livelihood. Many a local 
touch gives vraisemblance to the scenes described. 
For example, when Miles is called to the council of 
war, the voice of the elder is raised against war. 
"Judging it wise and well that some, at least, were 
converted," the sentiment actually expressed by John 
Robinson after the first encounter with the Indians, 
who wrote to the Colonists: "Oh, how happy a thing 
it had been if you had converted some before you had 
killed any." Again, when the Mayflower sails the 
poet describes how — 

"Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, 

and above them 
Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, 

and their kindred 
Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the 

prayer that they uttered." 

This refers to the fact that in order that the In- 
dians should not know how many of the Pilgrims had 
died during the winter by counting their graves, they 
had the bank which was a little distance from Plym- 
outh Rock, where they were buried, leveled, and sown 
with grass. 

Priscilla's ride home from her wedding on a snow- 
white bull is also in keeping with the time, for heads 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 141 

of cattle were divided by lot among the settlers, and 
horses being scarce, cattle were pressed into service 
where otherwise horses would have been used. 

I have read somewhere in an account purporting 
to be historical that "when John Alden went to Cape 
Cod to marry Priscilla Mullins, he covered his bull 
with broadcloth and rode on his back; when he re- 
turned, he placed his wife there and led the bull home 
by the ring in his nose." It looks much as if the story 
about the bull had been derived from Longfellow's 
poem, but how Priscilla was transplanted to Cape 
Cod is a myster5^ She and John both lived in Plym- 
outh and were married there, though later they moved 
to Duxbury, as did also Miles Standish and various 
others who wished larger farmsteads. The name 
was given the settlement, of course, from Duxbury 
Hall, the ancestral home of Miles Standish. 

The up-to-date pilgrim taking his rapid way by 
train to Duxbury from Plymouth, will see not far 
from the station on the right, the second home built 
by John Alden in Duxbury, still occupied by descend- 
ants of John and Priscilla with the same names. 

Not far from the present house is a knoll marked by 
a slab where the first house stood. The scenery in 
the neighborhood is rural and peaceful. There are 
meadows and gardens, and wood lots, with houses of 
many types distributed about the landscape, from the 
old-time dwelling to the natty modern cottage. The 
monotony of level meadowland is varied every now 
and then by a hill or groups of hills, one such rise of 
the land protecting the Alden house from the sea- 
winds. Perhaps the most interesting features of the 
landscape are the eagle-trees, standing solitary in the 



142 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

midst of swampy fields near the lake which is named 
from them "Eagle Lake." These ancient trees, 
which show in their gnarled and twisted branches their 
long endurance of ocean winds and cold, were once 
the favorite perches of eagles, now no longer to be 
found in this region. 

Those who have a penchant for historic old houses 
will like to enter the penetralia of the Alden house. 
In the days when this house was built, the kitchen fire 
was the altar of the household gods and around it the 
manifold occupations of the women inmates were car- 
ried on. In this instance the kitchen is a long nar- 
row room about twelve feet wide and forty feet long 
with a huge fireplace on one side. This room served 
not only as kitchen and dining-room, but as nursery, 
sewing-room and spinning-room. There also the 
family gathered about the fire in the evening. In 
many a New England cottage to-day the kitchen 
holds the same important place in the life of the house- 
hold, while the parlor is so cold and stuffy that it is 
rarely entered. In the Alden house, however, there are 
two other fine rooms, in which the family or guests 
might assemble. One, called in the olden times, the 
Great Room, with a fine large fireplace, which has, 
however, given place in later days to a wooden panel- 
ing and a small iron grate. A corner cupboard is built 
in one corner of the room, and near it is a panel of 
wood which may be raised, disclosing the date of the 
erection of the house, cut into the planking, 1653. 

Next the Great Room is another which was called 
the Best Room or parlor, of about the same size. In 
the hall is a curious ladder-like stairway over the chim- 
ney which leads to the sleeping-rooms above. The 



IDYLS FROM HISTORY 143 

most interesting object upstairs is a door in the guest- 
room supposed to have been transferred from the 
first house built on the Duxbury farm, and which 
may have been made by John Alden himself, for it is 
said that he knew well how to use tools. 

The house occupied by Miles Standish in Duxbury 
no longer exists, but there is still standing one built 
by his son, Alexander, in which there are supposed to 
be timbers taken from the old house. Miles Stand- 
ish owned all the land to the south of Captain's Hill, 
where his monument now stands. The site of his 
barn is pointed out near a large rock called the Cap- 
tain's Chair. There is no more delectable spot in 
Duxbury than this hill with its wonderful view. 
Away off to the east are the white sandhills of Cape 
Cod, ghstening on sunlit days beyond the Italian 
blue of the ocean. Beach and lighthouse and sails 
make the foreground familiar in most sea-shore places, 
none of which, however, is without some distinctive 
individuality of its own. To the south across the bay 
is the promontory of Manomet, with the town of 
Plymouth below and the neighboring villages of 
Rocky Nook and Kingston. Inland, far to the north- 
west loom up the Milton Hills, with forest and fields 
for foreground, and the villages of Duxbury and 
Marshfield dotting the green rolling country with 
their white cottages. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



"How has New England's romance fled. 

Even as a vision of the morning! 
Its rites foredone, its guardians dead. 
Its priestesses, bereft of dread. 

Waking the veriest urchin's scorning! 
Gone like the Indian wizard's yell 

And fire-dance round the magic rock. 
Forgotten like the Druid's spell 

At moonrise by his holy oak! 



No pale blue flame sends out its flashes 
Through creviced roof and shattered sashes! 
The witch-grass round the hazel spring 
May sharply to the night-air sing, 
But there no more shall withered hags 
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags. 
Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters 
As beverage meet for Satan's daughters; 
No more their mimic tones be heard. 
The mew of cat, the chirp of bird. 
Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter 
Of the fell demon following after !'^ 

Whittier. 



IV 



THE two other important historical periods used 
by Longfellow in his poetry are those dealing 
with the Quaker persecution and with the 
withcraft persecution. "John Endicott" and "Giles 
Corey" are more avowedly than any of his other 
American poems, attempts to reconstruct important 
episodes in the nation's history, especially its religious 
history. 

They form the third part of his magnum opus, 
"Christus," the work more near to his heart than any- 
thing else he has written. The composition of it ex- 
tended over a period of thirty years. As early as 
November, 1841, he notes in his journal: "This even- 
ing it has come into my mind to undertake a long and 
elaborate poem by the holy name of "Christ"; the 
theme of which would be the various aspects of Chris- 
tendom in the Apostolic, Middle and Modern Ages." 
It was not until 1873 that the work was pubhshed in 
its completed form. The middle portion, "The 
Golden Legend," appeared first in December, 1851 ; 
the third portion, "The New England Tragedies," in- 
cluding the two plays, "John Endicott" and "Giles 
Corey," in October, 1868, and the first portion, "The 
Divine Tragedy," was the last pubhshed, in 1871. 
"John Endicott" follows closely the contemporary 

147 



148 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

records of the Quaker persecution in Boston. The 
names are historical with the exception of Edith, the 
daughter of Wenlock Christison, who is an imaginary 
person in her relationship to Wenlock, no daughter 
of his being mentioned in the records. The tale of 
her woes and the undaunted religious strength of her 
character are, however, paralleled by many a one of 
maltreated Quakeresses of the day. The part of John 
Endicott, son of Governor Endicott, is also imagi- 
nary. Longfellow has intensified artistically the 
situation by making him sympathize with the Quakers 
and fall in love with Edith. 

The poet derived most of his subject-matter from 
Besse's account of the sufferings of the Quakers, a 
record of man's brutality forming a chapter in hu- 
man annals so dark as to be almost incomprehensible. 
This book was published in London, 1753, and was 
based upon original records of the persecutions, not 
only in New England, but in England, Ireland, Scot- 
land, Germany and divers other places where the so- 
called heresy had penetrated. 

Herein it is related how in July of 1656, "Two 
women of that persuasion [Quakers] arrived in a 
vessel from Barbadoes in the road before Boston. 
Intelligence of their arrival being given to Richard 
Bellingham, the Deputy Governor (the Governor 
himself being out of town), he immediately ordered 
them to be detained on board and sent officers who 
searched their trunks and chests and took away one 
hundred books which they carried on shore. The 
danger which was apprehended from the arrival of 
these women and the spreading of their books, pro- 
duced the following order: 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 149 

" 'Whereas, there are several laws long since made 
and published in this jurisdiction, bearing testimony 
against Hereticks and erroneous Persons, yet not- 
withstanding Simon Kempthome of Charles-Town, 
Master of the ship Swallow of Boston, hath brought 
into this Jurisdiction, from the Island of Barbadoes, 
two women, who name themselves Anne, the Wife of 
one Austin, and Mary Fisher, being of that Sort of 
People commonly known by the name of Quakers, 
who, upon examination, are foimd not only to be 
Transgressors of the former Laws, but do hold very 
dangerous heretical and blasphemous opinions, and 
they do also acknowledge that they came here pur- 
posely to propagate their said Errors and Heresies, 
bringing with them and spreading here sundry books, 
wherein are contained most corrupt, Heretical and 
blasphemous Doctrines, contrary to the Truth of the 
Gospel here professed among us. The council, 
therefore, tendring the Preservation of the Peace 
and Truth enjoyed and professed among Churches of 
Christ in this Country, do hereby order: 

" 'First, That all such corrupt Books, as shall be 
found upon Search, to be brought in and spread by 
the aforesaid Persons, be forthwith burned and de- 
stroyed by the common Executioner. 

" 'Secondly, That the said Anne and Mary be 
kept in close Prison, and none admitted communica- 
tion with them without leave from the Governor, 
Deputy Governor or two magistrates, to prevent the 
spreading of their corrupt opinions, until such Time 
as they be delivered aboard of some vessel to be trans- 
ported out of the country. 

" 'Thirdly, The said Simon Kempthorne is here- 



150 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

by enjoined, speedily and directly to transport or 
cause to be transported, the said prisoners from hence 
to Barbadoes, from whence they came, defraying all 
the charges of their Imprisonment, and for the effect- 
ual Performance hereof, he is to give Security in a 
Bond of one Hundred Pounds Sterling, and on his 
Refusal to give such Security, he is to be committed 
to Prison till he do it.' " 

The women were imprisoned and so badly treated 
that "their case excited the compassion of Nicholas 
Upshall, an old inhabitant in Boston, and a member 
of the church there, so that he gave the goaler five 
shillings a week for the liberty of sending them pro- 
visions, lest they should be starved." 

In Longfellow's drama, Edith is among the 
Quaker passengers on the Swallow, and is harbored 
with Edward Wharton, under the hospitable roof of 
Nicholas Upshall, whence they are rudely carried 
off to prison. Another record gives an account of 
this arrest of Edward Wharton: "Anon they met with 
Edward Wharton in their search at Nicholas Up- 
shall's house, and questioned him, whether he was not 
one that spake at the Quaker's Meeting? He de- 
manded of them. What they had to do to examine 
him? We have a Warrant, said they. Let me see 
it, said he. When they showed it, he told them. His 
name was not in it. You shall go before the Gov- 
ernor, said the Constable. But Edward refused to 
go without a Warrant. Upon that the Constable 
drew out his black staff and said, Here is my War- 
rant. Then they dragged him by Violence out of the 
House, and led him away to the Governor's: The 
Governor, though he knew Edward full well, and 




o <u • 
5. ^ o 

O -tJ >> 



H S 



a; ^ 

■ o 

42 « 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 151 

that he was an inhabitant of the Colony, a Tradesman 
of good Circumstances, and a reputable Housekeep- 
er, yet presently told him, He should suffer as a Vag- 
abond: To which Edward replied, I defy the Life of 
a Vagabond: That Law is a wicked Law, and very 
wicked and unrighteous Men are they that cause those 
who fear the Lord to suffer by such a wicked Law. 
But his Plea availed not: The Governor, resolved on 
Rigour, turned the deaf Ear to all his Reasoning, and 
issued the following Warrant, viz. : 

" 'To the Constable of Boston, or his Deputy, and 
of Lynn, and his Deputy: 

" 'You are hereby required, in his Majesty's Name, 
to commit the Body of Edward Wharton to safe Cus- 
tody till the next Morning, and then to take him 
out of Prison, and cause him to be tied to a Cart's 
Tail, and whipped through this Town, and delivered 
to the Constable of Lynn, to be alike whipped, and 
by him to be carried to Salem, the Place of his Abode, 
from whence as a Vagabond he hath strayed, and re- 
fused to give a satisfactory answer for such a vagrant 
Life: Whereof you are not to fail. Dated the 4th 
of May, 1664. 

" 'John Endicott.' " 

The trial of Wenlock Christison is given with lively 
dramatic force in this old book, and furnished for the 
poet important material for the developing of the 
characters of both Wenlock and Endicott. As this 
rare book does not come to the hands of many read- 
ers, we transcribe the trial scene — as a curious bit of 
literature showing how insanely unjust really reputa- 



152 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ble people could be when obsessed by any form of 
fanaticism. 

Trial of Wenlock Christison. 

But above all most eminently remarkable was the 
Christian courage and magnanimity of Wenlock 
Christison, who having been banished on pain of 
death, not only returned as it were with his life in 
his hands to Boston, but openly came into the court 
there at the time when they were passing sentence of 
death uj)on William Leddra. His appearance there 
struck the Court with a sudden damp and consterna- 
tion, so that for some time there was a general silence. 
But, anon, recovering themselves, they ordered him 
to be brought to the bar. 

The marshall bid him pull off his hat. 

Wenlock. No, I shall not. 

Secretary Eawson. Is not your name Wenlock 
Christison? 

Wenlock. Yes. 

Governor Endicott. Wast not thou banished upon 
pain of Death? 

Wenlock. Yes, I was. 

Governor, What dost thou here then? 

Wenlock. I am come to warn you, that you should 
shed no more innocent blood; for the blood that you 
have shed already, cries to the Lord for Vengeance 
to come upon you. 

Whereupon the Governor ordered to take him into 
custody. 

On the day that William Leddra was executed, the 
Court sat again, and thinking to terrify Wenlock by 
the Example of William's Death, sent for him; when 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 158 

both the Governor Endicott and his Deputy Belling- 
ham endeavoured to daunt that valiant confessor with 
bloody Menaces, telling him, that Except he would 
renounce his religion he should surely die. But he, 
not at all dismayed, answered thus, Nay, I shall not 
change my Religion, nor seek to save my life : neither 
do I intend to deny my master, but if I love my life 
for Christ's Sake, and the preaching of the Gospel, I 
shall save it. This undaunted reply so struck them 
for the present that after a few words they sent him 
to prison again, there to be kept till the next Court. 

At the next Court the Governor asked him what 
he had to say for himself why he should not die? 

Wenlock. I have done nothing worthy of death; 
if I had I refuse not to die. 

Governor. Thou art come in among us in Re- 
bellion, which is as the Sin of Witch-craft and ought 
to be punished. 

Wenlock, I came not in among you in Rebellion, 
but in Obedience to the God of Heaven; not in Con- 
tempt to any of you, but in Love to your Souls and 
Bodies : and that you shall know one Day, when you 
and all Men must give an Account of your Deeds 
done in the body. Take heed, for you cannot es- 
cape the righteous judgments of God. 

Major-General Adderton. You pronounce woes 
and judgments, and those that are gone before you 
pronounce woes and judgments; but the judgments 
of the Lord God are not come upon us yet. 

Wenlock. Be not proud, neither let your Spirits 
be lifted up; God doth but wait till the measure of 
your Iniquity be filled up, and that you have run 
your ungodly Race, then will the Wrath of God come 



154 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

upon you to the uttermost: And as for thy past it 
hangs over thy Head, and is near to be poured down 
upon thee, and shall come as a thief in the night sud- 
denly, when thou thinkest not of it. By what Law 
will ye put me to death? 

Court, We have a Law, and by our Law you are 
to die. 

Wenlock. So said the Jews of Christ. We have 
a Law, and by our Law he ought to die. Who em- 
powered you to make that Law? 

Court, We have a patent, and are Patentees. 
Judge whether we have not Power to make Laws? 

Wenlock, How? Have you Power to make Laws 
repugnant to the Laws of England? 

Governor, Nay. 

Wenlock, Then you are gone beyond your 
Bounds, and have forfeited your Patent, and this is 
more than you can answer. Are you Subjects to 
the King, yea, or nay? 

Secretary Rawson. What will you infer from 
that, what good will that do you? 

Wenlock. If you are, say so ; for in your Petition 
to the King, you desire that he will protect you and 
that you may be worthy to kneel among his loyal Sub- 
jects. 

Court, Yes. 

Wenlock. So am I, and for any thing I know, am 
as good as you, if not better; for if the King did 
but know your Hearts, as God knows them, he would 
see that your Hearts are as rotten towards him, as 
they are towards God. Therefore, seeing that you 
and I are Subjects to the King, I demand to be tried 
by the Law of my own Nation. 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 155 

Court, You shall be tried by a Bench and a Jury. 

Wenloch. That is not the Law, but the Manner 
of it; for if you will be as good as your Word, you 
must set me at Liberty, for I never heard or read of 
any Law that was in England to hang Quakers. 

Governor. There is a law to hang Jesuits. 

Wenlock. If you put me to Death, it is not be- 
cause I go under the name of a Jesuit, but a Quaker, 
therefore I do appeal to the Laws of my own Nation. 

Court. You are in our Hands, and have broken 
our Laws, and we will try you. 

Wenlock. Your Will is your Law, and what you 
have Power to do, that you will do. And seeing that 
the Jury must go forth on my Life, this I have to say 
to you in the Fear of the Living God, That you will 
true Trial make, and just Verdict give, according to 
the Evidence. Jury, look for your Evidence: What 
have I done to deserve Death? Keep your Hands out 
of innocent Blood. 

A Juryman. It is good Counsel. 

The Jury went out, but having received their Les- 
son, soon returned and brought in their Verdict 
Guilty. 

Wenloch. I deny all Guilt, for my Conscience is 
clear in the Sight of God. 

Governor. The Jury hath condemned thee. 

Wenlock. The Lord doth justify me, who art 
thou that condemnest? 

Then the Court proceeded to vote as to the Sentence 
of Death, to which several of them, viz., Richard Rus- 
sell and others, would not consent, the Innocence and 
Steadfastness of the Man having prevailed upon them 
in his Favour. There happened also a circumstance 



156 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

during this Trial, which could not but affect Men of 
any Tenderness or Consideration, which was, that a 
Letter was sent to the Court from Edward Wharton, 
signifying. That, whereas, they had banished him on 
pain of Death, yet he was at Home in his own House 
in Salem, and therefore proposing That they would 
take off their wicked Sentence from him, that he 
might go about his Occasions out of their Jurisdiction. 
This Circumstance, however affecting to others, did 
only enrage Endicott, the Governor, who was very 
much displeased, and in much anger cried out, I could 
find it in my heart to go Home. 

Wenlock. It were better for thee to be at Home 
than here, for thou art about a bloody piece of Work. 

Governor. You that will not consent, record it. I 
thank God I am not afraid to give Judgment. Wen- 
lock Christison, hearken to your Sentence : You must 
return unto the Place from whence you came, and 
from thence to the Place of Execution, and there you 
must be hanged until you be dead, dead, dead, upon 
the 13th Day of June, being the Fifth day of the 
Week. 

Wenlock. The Will of the Lord be done: In 
whose Will I came amongst you, and in his Counsel 
I stand, feeling his Eternal Power, that will uphold 
me unto the last Gasp, I do not question it. Known 
be it unto you all. That if you have 'Power to take 
my Life from me, my Soul shall enter into Ever- 
lasting Rest and Peace with God, where you, your- 
selves, shall never come: And if you have Power to 
take my Life from me, the which I do question, I be- 
lieve you shall nevermore take Quakers' Lives from 
them: [Note my Words.] Do not think to weary 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 157 

out the Living God by taking away the Lives of his 
Servants: What do you gain by it? For the last 
Man you put to Death, here are five come in his 
Room, that you may have Torment upon Torment, 
which is your Portion: For there is no Peace to the 
Wicked, saith my God. 

Governor. Take him away. 

So the Goaler had him back to Prison, where 
he continued in Faith and Patience, ready 
to abide the good Pleasure of God concern- 
ing him, and to suffer Death for a good Con- 
science, as his Brethren had done before him. But 
before the Day appointed for his Execution, an 
Order of Court (probably occasioned by some Intel- 
ligence from London, of Complaints against them) 
was issued for the Enlargement of him and twenty- 
seven others then in Prison for the same Testimony : 

When one of the Marshals and a Constable came 
to the Prison, and told them, they were ordered by 
the Court to make them acquainted with their New 
Law, Wenlock Christison said. What means this? 
Have ye a New Law? They answered, Yes. Then 
said Wenlock, You have deceived most People. 
Why? said they. Because, said Wenlock, they did 
think the Gallows had been your last Weapon : Have 
you got more yet? Yes, said they. Read it, says 
Wenlock ; which they did. Then Wenlock said, Your 
Magistrates said, that your Law was a good and 
wholesome Law, made for your Peace, and the Safe- 
guard of your Country. What! Are your Hands 
now become weak? The Power of God is over you 
all. Then the Prison-doors were set open, and Wen- 
lock, with twenty-seven others, turned forth, of whom 



158 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Peter Pearson and Judith Brown were whipt with 
twenty cruel Stripes through the Town of Boston, 
on their naked Backs: Many of their Mouths were 
opened, and they pubhshed the Truth among the 
People. A Guard armed with Swords was appoint- 
ed by the Court to drive them all out of that Jurisdic- 
tion into the Wilderness Country, which they per- 
formed accordingly. 

Norton, the divine, who figures in the opening 
meeting-house scene, was one of the most intolerant 
of the Puritans in his denunciation of the Quakers. 
He wrote a small book, published in Cambridge, 1659, 
and in London 1560, still to be found in libraries in its 
original editions, of which the title and headings of 
chapters alone, are enough to show the temper of the 
book. Here is the title : 

"The Heart of New England Rent at the Blas- 
phemies of the present Generation Or a brief trac- 
tate Concerning the Doctrine of the Quakers, Dem- 
onstrating the destructive nature thereof, to Religion, 
the Churches, and the State; with consideration of 
the Remedy against it. Occasional Satisfaction to 
Objections, and Confirmation of the contrary Truth." 

The contents show the lines o^rgument taken up, 
which it is unnecessary to say are dwelt upon at weari- 
some and unconvincing length spite of the slimness of 
the little volume. 

"Chapter I. The Original of the Doctrine of the 
Quakers, with some of their principal Heterodoxies. 
A Brief Demonstration of three Distinct Persons in 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 159 

the Divine Essence. Satisfactions to some Objec- 
tions, and a vindication of some Scriptures. 

"Chapter II. Of the Signal Nature of the 
Quakers and other false Teachers, arising and pre- 
vailing among the people of God. 

"Chapter III. Of the Destructiveness of the 
Doctrine and Practise of the Quakers unto Religion, 
the Churches of Christ, and Christian States. 

"Chapter IV. Of the Remedy against Heretical 
Doctrines, and in particular against the Doctrine of 
the Quakers." 

The sentence passed upon Edith by the Court that 
she be 

"Scourged in three towns, with forty stripes save one. 
Then banished upon pain of death!" 

is one only too frequently recorded. The shocking 
tale of the repeated cruelty practised upon Elizabeth 
Horton is especially suggestive of Edith's fate: 

"Elizabeth Horton, who notwithstanding all the 
cruel usage she had sustained, was nothing terrified, 
but returned again to Boston, and there publickly 
warned the People of Repentance, and of the terri- 
ble Day of the Lord, which would otherwise overtake 
them : This Message of hers was received with Scorn, 
her godly admonitions rejected, and she herself sent 
to the House of Correction, and there whipt at a 
whipping-post with ten Stripes; thence she was sent 
to Roxbury, and there whipt at a Cart's Tail, and 
from thence to Dedham, where the same cruel Pun- 
ishment was repeated: Thence she was had to Med- 



160 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

field, and the same night hurried into the Wilderness, 
and there left to pass above twenty Miles with her 
body thus miserably torn and mangled, in an extreme 
cold Season." 

In depicting the character of Governor Endicott, 
Longfellow evidently depended largely upon the ac- 
counts given of him in "New England Judged by 
the Spirit of the Lord," a book dealing with the 
Quaker persecution, by George Bishop and printed in 
London in 1703. According to this. Governor Endi- 
cott had been much beloved by some of the very peo- 
ple he afterwards persecuted. A letter from a former 
neighbor of his, John Smith, in Salem, bears witness 
to this. In the course of this letter he exclaims : 

"Oh! my spirit is grieved for thee, because that the 
love I did once see in thee, is departed from thee, 
and there remaineth in thee a spirit of cruelty, of hard- 
heartedness to thy poor neighbours, which thou hast 
formerly been much beholden to, and relieved by in 
time of want, when thou hadst no bread to eat. Oh! 
Consider of these times, and forget them not, and of 
the love thou didst find amongst poor people in thy 
necessity, and how evil thou hast dealt, and requited 
some of them now, and how thou didst walk and act 
contrary to what thou didst formerly profess; yea, 
I have heard thee say: 'That all the armies on earth 
cannot subdue one lust in man or woman;' and now 
thou pronouncest sentence of death upon some, be- 
cause they cannot submit to your wills, nor worship 
as ye do." And again he is spoken of as "A man 
who formerly had some tenderness in him and who 
had degenerated into hardness and cruelty, a cruelty 
which Longfellow makes him show even to his son." 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 161 

It is certainly a strange circumstance that just as 
the Quakers were constantly predicting, judgment 
apparently did fall upon those men who seemed fair- 
ly to have lost their reason in their treatment of alien 
religionists. 

Of Endicott it is written, soon after signing a war- 
rant for the barbarous whipping of Edward Wharton, 
"But as for John Endicott, your cruel and unmerciful 
governor, he fought no more bloody battles with the 
people of the Lord, but as if this were the comple- 
ment of his miserable tragedy, or the height of all 
that which he travailed with during the days of his 
government, which showed consummate or complete 
his wickedness, or fill up the measure of his iniquity, 
rapine, cruelty, and blood, and that which should sum 
up all the end of his days and the measure of his 
iniquity, he died not long after, the hand of the Lord 
struck him off." 

Among others suddenly "struck off" and referred 
to by Longfellow were Humphrey Adderton ( Ather- 
ton), "who vaunted concerning the Judgments of 
God, saying, 'They were not come yet,' and said, 
'That Mary Dyer hung as a flag of warning,' was 
killed by a fall off his horse." 

"John Davenport, a member of their church, and 
captain of their castle near Boston, being laid upon 
his bed in the heat of the day, the hand of the Lord 
in a strange manner, with a clap of thunder and a 
flash of lightning, in a moment smote him to death, it 
is testified he never spoke more." 

And John Norton, "one of their Chief Priests, a 
principal Exciter of the Magistrates to persecute the 
innocent and put them to Death, was cut off by a 



162 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

sudden and unexpected Stroke, for having been at 
his worship in the fore part of the Day, and intend- 
ing to go thither again in the afternoon, as he was 
walking in his own House, he was observed to fetch 
a great groan, and leaning his Head against the 
Chimney-piece, was heard to say. The Hand, or Judg- 
ment of the Lord is upon me, and so sunk down and 
spake no more, and had fallen into the Fire, had 
not an ancient man then present prevented it." 

Bellingham, also, "having completed the Measure 
of his Iniquity, ended his Government with his Life, 
being bereft of his understanding and dying dis- 
tracted." 

Those who care to do so may read of the unheard- 
of calamities subsequently falling upon New Eng- 
land in Cotton Mather's History. 

It is not improbable that when the craze for cruelty, 
and brutality began to wear itself out, there was an 
awakening of the conscience, and an overwhelming, 
sickening sense of the barbarousness which had sig- 
nalized this religious persecution. Irritating the 
Quakers were, no doubt. Banishment was a perfect- 
ly ineffective weapon against them, because they per- 
sisted, in fact, took a particular delight in disobeying 
the sentence of banishment. Under these circum- 
stances the Governor justified himself upon the 
ground that they themselves rushed upon their death. 
We can easily imagine that if the Salvation Army 
should march up the aisle of an Episcopal church to- 
day with drums and cymbals beating, and banners 
flying, and insist that the minister in the pulpit had 
a darkened understanding and that the leaders alone 
knew the truth — we can imagine the congregation's 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 163 

demanding that such a disturbance of its peace should 
be immediately stopped. 

In that long ago time, to irritation was added the 
fear that the rock of truth upon which the church 
stood might be swept away. The lesson had not yet 
been learned that a new view of truth is but 
another view, and that the same truth may be ap- 
proached from different sides by different natures. 

Yet this very outbreak of fanaticism was to help 
a long way toward the learning of the lesson. If we 
could have known the soul of Governor Endicott, we 
should know that it was awakening to larger light, 
and this is indeed the lesson which the poet means to 
emphasize in the closing words of the Governor: 

"Speak no more. 
For as I listen to your voice it seems 
As if the Seven Thunders uttered their voices. 
And the dead bodies lay about the streets 
Of the disconsolate city. Bellingham, 
I did not put those wretched men to death. 
I did but guard the passage with the sword 
Pointed towards them, and they rushed upon it! 
Yet now I would that I had taken no part 
In all that bloody work." 

So he was saved. 

If the Quaker persecution was difficult to compre- 
hend, the witch delusion was still more extraordinary. 
How did it happen that men of brains and culture, 
doctors, clergymen, even a man like Cotton Mather, 
should have let themselves be duped by a parcel of 
children, when a simple-minded woman like Martha 
Corey should have seen so clearly the imposture of 
it all, and though brought up against learning and 



164 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

piety and accusation stoutly maintained until the last 
her disbelief in witches ? Why should her psychology 
have been so much in advance of that of the rest of 
the community? After the wiseacres of the town had 
tortured and hung and imprisoned innocent human 
beings in their attempts to exorcise the Devil, they 
suddenly woke up, and came to the point of view of 
Martha. Goodwife Corey should certainly be re- 
garded as marking an important step in the evolu- 
tion of consciousness. 

Longfellow's play is modeled closely upon the 
facts in the Salem tragedy of 1692. There is Giles, 
the testy, ill-tempered man, but with a good heart, 
who has but lately become a Christian, and is trying 
hard to repent from the errors of his way. He, 
like most of his associates, is full of a belief in witch- 
craft. There is Martha, his wife, a sweet, affection- 
ate woman, of sound brain and heart, who refuses to 
believe in witchcraft, and never hesitates to say that 
priest and magistrate were alike deluded. There is 
Gloyd, the disgruntled servant of Corey; Hathorne, 
the blindly superstitious magistrate, and Cotton 
Mather, who was a firm believer in the "Wonders of 
the Invisible World," as his book proves, but who also 
believed that accusations and condemnations should 
not be made in too great haste. Finally there is 
Mary Walcot and Tituba, the slave woman, with 
whom the savage but fortunately brief craze origi- 
nated. Jonathan Walcot and Gardner, the friend, 
are imaginary "walking gentlemen," the latter being 
merely a foil to bring out more emphatically the true 
nobleness of Giles Corey's nature. When it comes 
to the supreme test, Gardner tries to persuade him 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 165 

to perjure himself by confessing he has had dealings 
with the Devil, but this sturdy old fellow of eighty 
refuses to accept any loophole of escape, though he 
is to suffer the horrible torture of being pressed to 
death. 

We explain this delusion to-day by saying that it is 
based upon the complex phenomena of trance, insanity 
and hypnotism, but no one can read the facts in the 
case without realizing that love of power, of display, 
and enmity had a large share in the development of 
the delusion. 

The ''afflicted children" declared they were 
bewitched through the agency of others in league 
with the Devil, but as a matter of fact it was their 
own evil natures which were in league with the powers 
of evil. 

The trouble started in Salem Village, the county 
seat of Salem Town. It was five miles off and is 
now Danvers Centre, so the curious visitor who would 
like to see the house where witchcraft started must 
take a trip thither. 

It was at the home of the Rev. Samuel Parris, who 
had become, in 1688, the pastor of the New Church, 
in 1671 separated from the First Church. It is said 
that his lust for power was one of the underlying 
sources of the witch persecution. At any rate, he 
was not only one of the most implacable of the per- 
secutors, but it was because of practices allowed in his 
own home that the delusion reached such terrifying 
proportions. 

The facts in the case are briefly as follows:* 

Mr. Parris had in his household at Salem several 



166 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

slaves. Two of them were John Indian and his wife, 
Tituba, natives of South America, who were saturated 
with the superstitions of their race, and with whom 
the young girls in the neighborhood had mysterious 
interviews. During the winter of 1691-92, a circle 
of girls was formed, who used to come regularly to 
the parsonage for the purpose of practising the arts of 
palmistry and magic. In addition to Tituba, the 
names of eleven girls are given who were members 
of the circle. 

Elizabeth Parris was the daughter of the minister. 
Although only nine years old she took a leading part 
in the early stages of the affair. Abigail Williams, 
her cousin, eleven years of age, lived in Mr. Parris's 
family, and from first to last was one of the most 
audacious in her accusations. Anne Putnam, twelve 
years of age, the daughter of the Parish Clerk, must 
have been a child of astonishing precocity, her prom- 
inence throughout having made her very memory 
odious. Mary Walcott was the daughter of the 
nearest neighbor. Mercy Lewis, seventeen years of 
age, was a servant girl. These were the most promi- 
nent, but the whole circle, including some older 
women, seemed to move with entire unanimity in acts 
of reckless presumption and appalling malignity. In 
the course of the winter this circle became adepts in the 
art of "unaccountable behaviors," such as creeping 
slyly into holes, dropping unconscious on the floor, 
making antic and unnatural gestures, writhing in 
dreadful contortions and uttering piercing outcries. 

The community was aroused. What could be the 
matter with them? Dr. Gregg, the village physician, 
was called in. What could a man who knew nothing 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 167 

about psychology, with generations of superstition be- 
hind him, do, but just what he did?— declare them 
under an evil hand ; they were bewitched. The whole 
country became alarmed at this professional decision. 
Multitudes thronged in to witness the tremendous 
convulsions of the "afflicted children," who natural- 
ly played up more and more to the part which was 
expected of them. An account is given by Mr. Law- 
son of his experience one Sunday when he preached 
in the meeting-house : 

"There were sundry of the afflicted persons at meet- 
ing. They had several sore fits in the time of public 
worship, which did something interrupt me in my first 
prayer, being so unusual. After psalms was sung, 
Abigail Williams said to me, 'Now, stand up and 
name your text!' And, after it was read, 'It is a long 
text!' In the beginning of sermon, Mrs. Pope, a 
woman afflicted, said to me, 'I know no doctrine you 
had; if you did name one I forgot it.' In sermon 
time, M^hen Goodwife C. [orey] was present, Abigail 
Williams called out, 'Look where Goodwife C. sits 
in her beam — ^her yellow bird betwixt her fingers!' 
Anne Putnam, another girl afflicted, said, 'There was 
a yellow bird sat on my hat as it hung .on the .pin in 
the pulpit!' But those that were by restrained her 
from speaking loud about it." 

Mr. Parris was so much troubled that he summoned 
all the neighboring ministers to his own house. Then 
they spent a day in fasting and prayer, in view of 
these strange dispensations. The children went 
through their various performances for the benefit of 
the ministers, who were duly amazed. They solemn- 
ly reaffirmed the opinion of Dr. Gregg. They de- 



168 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

clared it to be their full belief that the Evil One had 
confederates in that community, bewitching these poor 
girls. 

Wild excitement ensued upon this decision. Since 
the Devil could operate upon human affairs only 
through the instrumentality of human beings in 
league with himself, the burning question became 
"Who are those among us in league with him af- 
flicting these girls?" Finally the girls began indi- 
cating who the people were. All that were accused 
were arrested and thrown into prison, and if they 
would not confess themselves to be in league with 
the Devil, they were sentenced to be hung. "Gallows 
Hill," says a recent writer, "still haunts the western 
borders of Salem, a grim spectre of the dreadful Past. 
Around its base have clustered the factories and 
homes of a thriving population, and their 'buildings 
begin to ascend its rocky sides. But the bald and 
ancient top continues to affront the open sky. Our 
eye cannot run up that rocky height without recalling 
to our 'heart the most appalling event of Colonial 
history. There, looming against the summer clouds 
of 1692, nineteen innocent persons were hanged by 
the neck until they were dead." 

Such was the prologue to the accusation of Giles 
Corey and his wife. 

When Martha Corey was first arraigned for witch- 
craft, Giles was a firm believer in it. She, however, 
was one of the two or three persons who had both 
sense and boldness to declare that she did not believe 
there were any witches. A committee from the 
church called upon her with suspicions aroused be- 
cause of the outcries of the "afflicted children." She 




o 



y. ^ 



o 5^ 



^ n 



tf JJ 



NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 169 

received them cordially and told them she knew they 
had come to talk to her about being a witch, but that 
she was not one. But her shape continued to haunt 
the girls. She was brought before the magistrate and 
in spite of all her virtues she was promptly com- 
mitted. While undergoing her final trial, with serene 
and firm composure she reasserted her disbelief in 
the delusion. All the wiles of the crafty girls could 
not confound her, and she listened to her sentence with 
her heart undismayed by the terrors it denounced. 
She was, therefore, excommunicated, and at length 
carried to the scaffold, where, as Calef relates, "Mar- 
tha Corey, protestmg her innocence, concluded her 
life with an eminent prayer upon the ladder." The 
last we hear of her in Longfellow's play is in her cell, 
singing, where her husband hears her from his cell. 
The poet has worked up in a dream of Martha's a 
paper written by Giles Corey himself. In the dream 
her husband was to testify against her, and later in 
her trial the dream comes true in so far that her 
husband's testimony was damaging to her without 
his intending it. It was evidently thought that this 
paper might be used against Martha. But it was 
realized that there was nothing damaging to Martha 
in it, for though it shows that Giles believed himself 
and everything about him bewitched, he was not will- 
ing to say that his own wife was the witch. Here is 
the paper: 

"The evidence of Giles Corey testifieth and saith 
that last Saturday evening, sitting by the fire, my wife 
asked me to go to bed. I told her I would go to 
prayer, and when I went to prayer I could not utter 
my desires with any sense, nor open my mouth to 



170 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

speak. My wife did perceive it and came toward me, 
and said she was coming to me. After this, in a little 
space, I did according to my measure attend the duty. 
Some time last week I fetched an ox, well, out of the 
woods, about noon, and .he laying down in the yard 
I went to raise him, to yoke him, but he could not 
rise, but dragged his hinder parts as if he had been 
hip-shot. But after did rise. Another time, going 
to my duties, I was interrupted for a space, but after- 
wards I was helped according to my poor measure. 
My wife hath been wont to set up after I went to bed; 
and I have perceived her to kneel down on the hearth, 
as if she was at prayer, but heard nothing." 

The accusations of witchcraft against Giles Corey 
were intensified by local eimiities against him. The 
story runs that in the winter of 1676 a hired man 
named Goodell fell sick at his house. He was at 
length carried home to his friends by Goodwife 
Corey. Soon after he died. It was whispered about 
that he had come to his death in consequence of an 
awful flogging, given him in a passion by Corey. 
Corey was brought to trial for murder. He was ac- 
quitted. John Gloyd, another laborer on his farm, 
was a man of sullen temper. They had fallen out 
with each other a number of times, but, in 1678, a 
quarrel between them about wages had grown so 
fierce that they resorted to law. The case was, how- 
ever, taken out of court, and put into the hands of 
referees mutually chosen. It was decided against 
Corey by the voice of John Proctor, who was the 
friend of Gloyd. Corey expressed himself satisfied. 
A short time after this, one morning before daylight, 
Proctor's house topk fire and was burned to the 



NEW ENGLAND TR AGEDIE S 171 

ground. Corey was accused of setting it on fire, he 
was indicted for trial, but incontestable evidence 
proved an alibi and he was triumphantly acquitted. 
In order to put an end to the calumnies flying about 
in regard to him, Corey now instituted proceedings 
against a number of witnesses for defamation of 
character, and recovered damages against all of them. 
When his trial for witchcraft came on, his past 
record was made the most of, as Longfellow shows. 

Giles was examined in the meeting-house. "Giles 
Corey," said Hathorne, the magistrate, "you are 
brought before authority upon high suspicion of sun- 
dry acts of witchcraft. Now tell us the truth in the 
matter." 

"I hope through the goodness of God I shall, for 
that matter I never had no hand in, in my life." The 
"afflicted children," however, proved him a witch on 
the spot by .affirming that he had troubled them and 
by going off into spasms and awful convulsions. 

According to the records, "Giles Corey was, by an 
old Enghsh law, put to a most cruel death. When 
arraigned before the Court he refused to plead or 
to answer questions, for he knew what his fate would 
be in either case. The .usage in England was to give 
the recusant three separate opportunities to plead, 
each time announcing the dread penalty of continued 
contumacy. After the third trial if he still remained 
speechless he was remanded to prison, with the sen- 
tence of peine forte et dure. He would then be 
thrown upon his back, and weights of stone or iron 
would be piled upon him. There he would be kept 
sometimes for days, the weights gradually increasing 
until the sufferer had consented to plead, or had been 



172 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

pressed to death." It is said that Giles Corey told 
them it was no use for them to expect him to plead, 
and that they might as well pile on the rocks at once, 
"and so they did, and so he died." 

•Soon after this, the awakening came. The girls 
became too audacious and accused a lady known in 
all the region around for her graces — the wife of Rev. 
Mr. Hale of Beverly. He had, himself, been a per- 
secutor of witches, but to have his wife come under 
the ban was more than even his credulity could ac- 
cept. "He turned, at once, his powerful influence 
against the current. The accusers had perjured 
themselves. This conviction spread suddenly through 
the community. The people had been duped. It 
was all a mistake. The wild storm quelled. In a 
moment that mortal delirium was checked. The 
whole delusion vanished." 

Salem was so horror-stricken upon coming into its 
right mind that there are few traditions and few relics 
to lend their embellishment to the tale. The grim 
records were in the old meeting-house where the unco' 
pious Mr. Parris held forth, and where had been the 
scene of so many insane witch trials. 

The visitor to Salem will probably continue to gaze 
with curiosity upon the witch pins preserved in the 
Court House. Just common ^pins ! but diabolical 
enough was their use, for the witches of Salem, like 
witches from time immemorial, were in the habit of 
making puppets like the persons they wished to in- 
jure. Jabbing pins into the puppets was a sure way 
of afliicting the bewitched person. 

The only witchcraft exercised by Salem now is 
upon the pocketbook of the summer person, who has 



NEW ENGLAND TR AGEDIE S 173 

a fad for souvenir spoons, and a taste for the delect- 
able confection made there, and known as the Salem 
Gibraltar — a delicious compound of softness and pep- 
permint. Coins large and small fly from their hiding 
places when coming into proximity with these 
luxuries. 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 



*^Long ere the shores of green America 

Were touched hy men of Norse and Saxon hlood. 
What time the Continent in silence lay, 
A solemn realm of forest and of flood. 

Where Nature wantoned wild in zones immensey 
Unconscious of her own magnificence; 

"Then to the savage race, who knew no world 
Beyond the hunter^s lodge, the council-fire. 
The clouds of grosser sense were sometimes furled. 
And spirits came to answer their desire, — 
The spirits of the race, grotesque and shy; 
Exaggerated powers of earth and sky. 

"For Gods resemble whom they govern: they. 

The fathers of the soil, may not outgrow 
The children's vision. In that earlier day. 
They stooped the race familiarly to know; 

From Heaven's blue prairies they descended, then. 
And took the shapes and shared the lives of rnen.* 

Bayard Taylor. 



IN turning to Indian stories for subject-matter for 
his poetry, Longfellow has done our literature 

a lasting service by adopting into it an entire- 
ly new range of folk-lore. It is often remarked that 
we can never have a distinctively American literature 
because we have no folk-lore of our own. Where is 
the culture-race that does possess a folk-lore exclu- 
sively its own? The French writers have either 
harked back to the classics or adopted the legends of 
Normandy or Brittany; the English writers have 
either harked back to the classics or adopted Celtic 
and Welsh legends into their literature. Push back 
the history of any people far enough and it will be 
found adopting into its literature, whether oral or 
written, the tales of aboriginal or previous inhabitants. 
The Indian lore is the lore of the soil, and when used 
as subject-matter by an American writer is just as 
much American literature as his descriptions of the 
wonderful scenery of the country, and it must per- 
force bring a new note into literature, and in that 
sense be American — since it exists nowhere else in the 
literature of culture. 

It was some time before the highly civilized con- 
querors of the Indians discovered that these "untu- 
tored" savages possessed any imagination whatever, 
and still longer before they began taking down from 

177 



178 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

the lips of Indians the stories and myths which circu- 
lated among them at their wigwam firesides. 

Paul Le Jeune, who was one of the first Jesuit mis- 
sionaries to the Indian tribes, who yet remained near 
the island of Hochelaga, in the St. Lawrence, in 1637, 
over a hundred years after Cartier's first visit to them 
in 1535, was "surprised" to observe that the natives 
were in the habit of entertaining themselves by fanci- 
ful tales, which, in a people who made war and hunt- 
ing their boast, constituted a curious branch of mental 
phenomena. At another time he wrote: "I think the 
savages, in point of intellect, may be placed in a 
high rank. Education and instruction alone are 
wanting. The powers of the mind operate with fa- 
cility and effect. The Indians I can well compare to 
some of our own villagers who are left without in- 
struction. Yet I have scarcely seen any person who 
has come from France to this country, who does not 
acknowledge that the savages have more intellect or 
capacity than most of our own peasantry." 

Other testimony of a like character came from 
French missionaries, one of the most appreciative of 
them being Charlevoix, who wrote: "The beauty of 
their imagination equals its vivacity, which appears in 
all their discourse: they are very quick at repartee, 
and their harangues are full of shining passages, 
which would have been applauded at Rome or Athens. 
Their eloquence has a strength, nature and pathos, 
which no art can give, and which the Greeks admired 
in the barbarians." These tribes were supposed to 
be the descendants of those M^ho were at the head of 
the celebrated Iroquois Confederacy. This league of 
the Five Nations was fashioned much like the Greek 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 179 

Amphictyonic League. The union was a real and 
practical one, yet each of the five allied tribes was left 
with its individual rights. It is a matter of moment 
to us that the Indians were so conscious of the su- 
periority of their form of government that they actu- 
ally urged upon the colonies in 1774, just trembling 
on the verge of becoming a Republic, the advantages 
of their system. 

To the myths current among this Iroquois nation 
Longfellow went for most of his material, which, as 
he himself explains, he found recorded in the various 
and voluminous works of Schoolcraft, who, having 
married an Indian wife, was in an excellent position to 
collect them from the oral traditions of the Indians 
among whom he lived for many years. Since his day 
collectors of Indian folk-lore have multiplied until, 
at the present time, every scrap of wisdom and fancy 
to be gleaned from this rapidly disappearing and reti- 
cent race is seized upon with the greatest eagerness. 
It is impossible often to persuade them to allow their 
oral tales to be written down. They have learned 
greatly to fear the intentions of the white man, but 
modern science, the conqueror of all things, overcomes 
the difficulty by prevailing upon the unsuspecting In- 
dian to talk in front of a phonograph, from which he 
is separated by a light screen. Amid this mass of 
material now being accumulated, there will doubtless 
be found much to the taste of future poets. 

Longfellow worked at the raw stuff of Indian 
legend as he did at everything else, in a simple roman- 
tic spirit, modeling it always with a view to making 
an interesting story. Sometimes weaving together 
separate tales, at another lopping off redundant ele- 



180 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ments, and again, expanding and embellishing with 
his own imaginative exfoliations, he has succeeded in 
"Hiawatha" in producing a marvellously unified 
series of pictures in the life of this Indian hero, who, 
among his own creators, was endowed with so hetero- 
geneous a collection of virtues and faults that he 
might easily stand as the prototype of Dr. Jekyll and 
Mr. Hyde. The poet has done this, too, without 
abating one jot of the fascination that usually clings 
about the exploits of a recklessly mischievous person 
in romance. 

There were two accounts of the great Indian hero, 
half-god, half-human, to draw upon. Among the 
Algonquins he was known as Manabozho, and was 
evidently more of a cosmic myth than anything else, 
with survivals of earlier animistic conceptions; for 
besides engaging in battles with his foes, especially 
Pau-Puk-Keewis, that suggest the wind and the 
storm, he was, as a God, known under the name of 
the Great White Hare. As a man he understood the 
language of birds and animals, which he called his 
brothers. He had also the power of transforming 
himself into the shape of any animal he pleased. The 
general conception of him was that of a messenger 
of the Great Spirit, sent down to mankind, in the 
character of a wise man or prophet, with the power of 
performing miraculous deeds. On the other hand, he 
has all the attributes of humanity, and adapts himself 
perfectly to their manners and customs and ideas. 

He was the conqueror of the evil genii of the In- 
dians, the Manitoes, yet he was so ambitious, vain- 
glorious and deceitful as often to be an evil genius 
himself. When he could gain his ends by cunning he 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 181 

never hesitated to do so. For example, he treated his 
brothers, the birds and animals, once in a manner 
scarcely befitting the messenger of the Great Spirit. 
He had invited them all to a feast. A curious enough 
feast! namely, a lake of oil which he had formed from 
a large fish he had captured. As his guests arrived 
he told them all to plunge in and help themselves, and 
for all time to come the measure of their fatness was 
decided by the order in which they partook of the ban- 
quet. Then the cunning Manabozho suggested it 
would be nice to have a little fun, and taking up his 
drum, he cried out : 

"New songs from the South; come, brothers, 
dance!" 

He directed them to make the sport more mirthful, 
that they should shut their eyes and pass round him 
in a circle. Again he beat his drum and cried out: 

"New songs from the South; come, brothers, 
dance!" 

They all fell in and commenced their rounds. 
Whenever Manabozho, as he stood in the circle, saw a 
fat fowl which he fancied, pass by him, he adroitly 
wrung its neck and slipped it in his girdle, at the same 
time beating his drum and singing at the top of his 
lungs, to drown the noise of the fluttering, and crying 
out in a tone of admiration : 

"That's the way, my brothers; that's the way." 

At last a small duck, of the diver family, thinking 
there was something wrong, opened one eye and saw 
what Manabozho was doing. Giving a spring, and 
crying: "Ha-ha-ha! Manabozho is killing us!" he 
made for the water. 

Manabozho, quite vexed that the creature should 



182 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

have played the spy upon his housekeeping, followed 
him, and just as the diver duck was plunging. into the 
water, gave him a kick, which is the reason that the 
diver's tail-feathers are few, his back flattened, and 
his legs straightened out so that when he comes on 
land he makes a poor figure in walking. 

Meantime, the other birds, having no ambition to 
be thrust into Manabozho's girdle, flew off and the 
animals scampered into the woods. 

The Iroquois account is a short and extreme- 
ly dignified one, in which this Indian hero ap- 
pears first as Tarenyawago, and then as Hiawatha, 
who formed the confederacy of the Five Nations, or 
as sometimes said, Six Nations. It was taken down 
from the lips of an Onondaga Chief, Abraham Le 
Fort, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
and as he had been educated at an academy, the sup- 
pression of merely grotesque elements might have been 
due to his personal manipulation of the ancient tradi- 
tion. At any rate, Longfellow made this more dig- 
nified account the basis of Hiawatha's character, add- 
ing to it whatever pleased his fancy from the exploits 
of the Algonquin hero, or from those told of other In- 
dian heroes. The account, as given in Schoolcraft's 
"Aboriginal Researches" is as follows: 

"Tarenyawago taught the six nations arts and 
knowledge. He had a canoe which would move with- 
out paddles. It was only necessary to will it to com- 
pel it to go; with this he ascended the streams and 
lakes. He taught the people to raise corn and beans, 
removed obstructions from their water-courses, and 
made their fishing grounds clear. He helped them to 
get mastery over the great monsters that overran 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 183 

the country. His wisdom was as great as his power. 
He gave wise instructions for observing the laws and 
maxims of the Great Spirit. Having done these 
things, he laid aside the high powers of his public 
mission and resolved to set an example of how people 
should live. He selected a beautiful spot on the 
shores of the lesser Southern lakes, erected a lodge, 
planted his field of corn, kept by him his magic canoe, 
and selected a wife. In relinquishing his former posi- 
tion as a subordinate power to the Great Spirit, he 
also dropped his name and according to his present 
situation took that of Hiawatha, meaning a person of 
very great wisdom. 

"He now lived in a degree of respect scarcely in- 
ferior to that which he before possessed. His words 
and counsels were implicitly obeyed. The people 
flocked to him from all quarters for advice and in- 
struction. Such persons as had been prominent in 
following his precepts, he favored, and they became 
eminent on the war-path and in the council-room. 

"When Hiawatha assumed the duties of an in- 
dividual, at Tioto, he carefully drew out from the 
water his beautiful talismanic canoe, which had served 
for horses and chariot, in his initial excursions through 
the Iroquois territories, and it was carefully secured 
on land, and never used except in his journeys to at- 
tend the general councils. He had elected to become 
a member of the Onondaga tribe, and chose the resi- 
dence of this people, in the shady recesses of their 
fruitful valley, as the central point of their govern- 
ment. 

"After the termination of his higher mission from 
above, years passed away in prosperity, and the Onon- 



184 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

dagas assumed an elevated rank, for their wisdom and 
learning, among the other tribes, and there was not 
one of these which did not yield its assent to their high 
privilege of lighting the general council fire. 

"Suddenly there arose a great alarm at the invasion 
of a ferocious band of warriors from the mouth of the 
Great Lakes. As they advanced, an indiscriminate 
slaughter was made of men, women and children. 
Destruction threatened to be alike the fate of those 
who boldly resisted, or quietly submitted. The public 
alarm was extreme. Hiawatha advised them not to 
waste their efforts in a desultory manner, but to call a 
general council of all the tribes that could be gath- 
ered together from the east to the west; and he ap- 
pointed the meeting to take place on an eminence on 
the banks of Onondaga lake. 

"Accordingly, all the chief men assembled at this 
spot. The occasion brought together vast multitudes 
of men, women and children ; for there was an expec- 
tation of some great deliverance. Three days had 
already elapsed, and there began to be a general anx- 
iety lest Hiawatha should not arrive. Messengers 
were despatched for him to Tioto, who found him in 
a pensive mood, to whom he communicated his strong 
presentiments that evil betided his attendance. These 
were overruled by the strong representations of the 
messengers, and he again put his wonderful vessel in 
its element, and set out for the council, taking his only 
daughter with him. She timidly took her seat in the 
stern, with a light paddle, to give direction to the ves- 
sel ; for the strength of the current of the Seneca river 
was sufficient to give velocity to the motion till arriv- 
ing at So-hah-hi, the Onondaga outlet. At this point 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 185 

the powerful exertions of the aged chief were re- 
quired, till they entered on the bright bosom of the 
Onondaga. 

"The grand council, that was to avert the threat- 
ened danger, was quickly in sight, and sent up its 
shouts of welcome as the venerated man approached 
and landed in front of the assemblage. An ascent led 
up the banks of the lake to the place occupied by the 
council. As he walked up this, a loud sound was 
heard in the air above, as if caused by some rushing 
current of wind. Instantly the eyes of all were di- 
rected upward to the sky, when a spot of matter was 
discovered descending rapidly, and every instant en- 
larging in its size and velocity. Terror and alarm 
were the first impulses, for it appeared to be descend- 
ing into their midst, and they scattered in confusion. 

"Hiawatha, as soon as he had gained the eminence, 
stood still, and caused his daughter to do the same, 
deeming it cowardly to fly, and impossible, if it were 
attempted, to divert the designs of the Great Spirit. 
The descending object had now assumed a more def- 
inite aspect, and as it came down, revealed the shape 
of a gigantic white bird, with wide extended and 
pointed wings, which came down, swifter and 
swifter, with a mighty swoop, and crushed the girl 
to the earth. Not a muscle was moved in the face 
of Hiawatha. His daughter lay dead before him, but 
the great and mysterious white bird was also destroyed 
by the shock. Such had been the violence of the con- 
cussion that it had completely buried its beak and head 
in the ground. But the most wonderful sight was the 
carcase of the prostrated bird, which was covered with 
beautiful plumes of snow-white, shining feathers. 



186 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

Each warrior stepped up and decorated himself with 
a plume. And it hence became a custom to assume 
this kind of feathers on the warpath. Succeeding 
generations substituted the plumes of the white heron, 
which led this bird to be greatly esteemed. 

"But yet a greater wonder ensued. On removing 
the carcase of the bird, not a human trace could be 
discovered of the daughter. She had completely van- 
ished. At this the father was greatly afflicted in 
spirits, and disconsolate. But he roused himself, as 
from a lethargy, and walked to the head of the coun- 
cil with a dignified air, covered with his simple robe of 
wolf-skins, taking his seat with the chief warriors and 
counselors, and listening with attentive gravity to the 
plans of the different speakers. One day was given to 
these discussions ; on the next day he arose and said : 

"'My friends and brothers; you are members of 
many tribes, and have come from a great distance. 
We have met to promote the common interest, and our 
mutual safety. How shall it be accomplished? To 
oppose these northern hordes in tribes singly, while 
we are at variance often with each other, is impossible. 
By uniting in a common band of brotherhood, we may 
hope to succeed. Let this be done, and we shall drive 
the enemy from our land. Listen to me by tribes. 

" 'You (the Mohawks), who •are sitting under the 
shadow of the Great Tree, whose roots sink deep in 
the earth, and whose branches spread wide around, 
shall be the first nation, because you are warlike and 
mighty. 

"'You (the Oneidas), who recline your bodies 
against the Everlasting Stone, that cannot be moved, 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 187 

shall be the second nation, because you always give 
wise counsel. 

" 'You (the Onondagas), who have your habitation 
at the foot of the Great Hills, and are overshadowed 
by their crags, shall be the third nation, because you 
are all greatly gifted in speech. 

"'You (the Senecas), whose dwelling is in the 
Dark Forest, and whose home is everywhere, shall be 
the fourth nation, because of your superior cunning 
in hunting. 

" *And you (the Cayugas), the people who live in 
the open country and possess much wisdom, shall be 
the fifth nation, because you understand better the art 
of raising corn and beans, and making houses. 

" 'Unite, you five nations, and have one common in- 
terest, and no foe shall disturb and subdue you. You, 
the people who are as the feeble bushes, and you, who 
are a fishing people, may place yourself under our 
protection, and we will defend you. And you of the 
south and of the west may do the same, and we will 
protect you. We earnestly desire the alliance and the 
friendship of you all. 

" 'Brothers, if we unite in this great bond, the Great 
Spirit will smile upon us, and we shall be free, pros- 
perous and happy. But if we remain as we are we 
shall be subject to his frown. We shall be enslaved, 
ruined, perhaps annihilated. We may perish under 
the war-storm, and our names be no longer remem- 
bered by good men, nor be repeated in the dance and 
song. 

" 'Brothers, these are the words of Hiawatha. I 
have said it. I am done.' 



188 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"The next day the plan of union was again con- 
sidered and adopted by the council. Conceiving this 
to be the accomplishment of his mission to the Iro- 
quois, the tutelar patron of this rising confederacy ad- 
dressed them in a speech elaborate with wise counsels, 
and then announced his withdrawal to the skies." 

The scene of the poem is laid on Lake Superior, be- 
tween the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable of the 
land of the O jib ways, a tribe belonging to the Algon- 
quins. The stage setting is an impressive one. Di- 
rectly out of this great fresh, inland sea, rise the pre- 
cipitous cliffs of the Pictured Rocks, often two hun- 
dred feet in height, and extending for five miles. By 
the constant surge of the breakers at their base, these 
cliffs have been worn into an astonishing variety of 
shapes, and are strangely brilliant with bands of 
many-hued color. Contrasting with this is the sandy 
stretch of the Grand Sable — a long reach of coast re- 
sembling a vast sandbank more than three hundred 
and fifty feet in height, without a trace of vegetation. 

The poet follows closely the Ojibway story of 
Manabozho's birth and childhood, which relates that 
his grandmother was a daughter of the moon. Hav- 
ing been married but a short time, her rival attracted 
her to a grape-vine swing on the banks of a lake, and 
by one bold exertion pitched her into the center, from 
which she fell through to the earth. Her daughter, 
the fruit of her human marriage, she was very careful 
to instruct, from her early infancy, to beware of the 
West Wind. But one day, neglecting precautions, 
she was encircled by the West Wind, who scattered 
her robes upon his wings and annihilated her. In her 




eo 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 189 

place was found a small infant, that soon developed, 
under the careful and tender nursing of his grand- 
mother, Nokomis, the striking lineaments of the in- 
fant Manabozho. 

The myth gives a scant account of his boyhood — 
wherein he is represented as living with his grand- 
mother on the edge of a wide prairie, seeing there birds 
and animals of every kind, learning every sound they 
uttered until he could converse with them so well that 
he called them his brothers, watching also the changes 
of day and night, musing upon the clouds as they rolled 
by, and watching the play of thunder and lightning. 
The poet has vitalized the story by weaving in many 
strange Indian myths and sayings: Such as the idea 
that the Milky Way is the pathway of ghosts ; that the 
rainbow is the heaven of flowers; that the flecks and 
shadows on the moon are a warrior's grandmother; 
that the Northern Lights are the death-dance of the 
spirits. The fear of the naked bear was proverbial. 
Heckewelder tells how the Indians declared that 
"among all animals which had formerly been in this 
country, this was the most ferocious ; that it was much 
larger than the largest of the common bears, and re- 
markably long-bodied; all over (except a spot of hair 
on its back of a white color) naked. The history of 
this animal used to be a subject of conversation among 
them, especially when in the woods or hunting. I 
have also heard them say to their children when cry- 
ing: 'Hush! the naked bear will hear you, be upon 
you, and devour you.' " Even the little fire-fly song 
is a real Indian chant, sung by the Ojibway children 
on hot summer evenings, when they assemble to amuse 



190 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

themselves before their parents' lodges. In the literal 
translation it is a charming example of Indian fancy: 

"Flitting white-fire insect. 
Waving white-fire bug, 
Give me light before I go to bed, 
Give me light before I go to sleep. 
Come, little dancing white-fire bug, 
Come, little flitting white-fire beast, 
Light me with your bright white flame-instrument, — 
your little candle." 

Hiawatha's fear of the owl is told in the story of 
Manabozho, but the incident of lagoo making his 
first bow and the subsequent shooting of the deer, is 
added to the story. 

By means of these additional touches of legend and 
the poetical expansion of the few facts of his child- 
hood given in the original story, the poet has created 
a lovely picture of mysterious childhood. This charm- 
ing account is led up to by the Prologue addressed to 
the reader, and two introductory cantos. Imaginative 
sources of the song of Hiawatha are given in the songs 
of an Indian bard, who derived them from 

"The birds' nests of the forest, 
In the lodges of the beaver, 
In the hoof-prints of the bison, 
In the eyrie of the eagle! 
All the wild-fowl sang them to him, 
In the moorlands and the fen-lands. 
In the melancholy marshes." 

At the end, in the symbolizing of the song as an in- 
scription on a grave-stone, is suggested the annihila- 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 191 

tion of the Indian life of the country, again brought 
out at the close of the poem in the description of the 
coming of the white man, 

"The Peace Pipe" relates a legend well fitted to 
give the pervading atmosphere of the poem. It is 
based upon an interesting version of the Red Pipe 
tradition given in Catlin's "Letters and Notes on 
Manners, Customs and Condition of the North Amer- 
ican Indians." 

The Great Spirit at an ancient period here [at the 
Red Pipe Stone Quarry] called the Indian nations 
together, and, standing on the precipice of the red 
pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made 
a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked 
over them, and to the north, the south, the east, and 
the west, and told them that this stone was red — that it 
was their flesh — that they must use it for their pipes 
of peace — that it belonged to them all, and that the 
war-club and scalping-knife must not be raised on its 
ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went 
into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock 
for several miles was melted and glazed; two great 
ovens were opened beneath, and two women ( guardian 
spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; 
and they are heard there yet ( Tso-mec-cos-tee and 
Tso-me-cos-te-won-dee) answering to the invocations 
of the high-priests or medicine-men, who consult 
them when they are visitors to this sacred place. 

"The Four Winds" is linked with the rest of the 
poem more closely because it introduces the father of 
the hero, Mudjekeewis, or the West Wind. An im- 
portant traditional exploit of his, for which Longfel- 
low found the material in an incident told in the course 



192 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

of the grisly tale of "lamo or The Undying Head," 
one of the stories in Schoolcraft's "Algic Researches," 
is joined with two other traditions of his brothers, the 
North and the South Wind, the first of which may be 
found in Schoolcraft's "Aboriginal Archives," the 
second in the "Algic Researches." Both of these 
legends are faithfully followed, owing nothing but 
their pleasing versification to the poet. 

The story of Mudjekeewis is, however, much con- 
densed and gains thereby greatly in strength. In 
the original he is only one of ten brothers who go 
forth to steal the wampum from the bear's neck, and 
it certainly does not appear that he was the brother to 
successfully slip the necklace of wampum over the 
sleeping bear's head. On the contrary, it was the 
youngest, while ]Mudjekeewis is spoken of as the third 
from the oldest ; nor does he immediately demolish the 
bear with his powerful club. Although he boasts 
that he is going to do great things, many adventures 
are gone through, during which various magical be- 
ings called up, not by Mudjekeewis, but by the eldest 
brother and leader, have their whacks at the bear. 
This monster whose growl is like thunder and who 
shakes the earth with his footsteps, is stunned by 
these beings long enough always to allow the brothers 
to escape from his imminent hugs, but he revives and 
goes striding over the landscape in pursuit of the 
thieves with ever renewed vigor. Finally the ten 
brothers embark in a canoe, the bear comes down to 
the edge of the lake as they paddle away, but being a 
clever animal, he starts to walk round the lake to 
head them off on the opposite side — so there is nothing 
for the brothers to do but stay in the middle of the 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 193 

lake. The bear, however, is equal to the emergency; 
he begins to drink up the lake, which causes such a 
rapid current toward his mouth that the canoe is 
carried irresistibly toward it. Now is the chance of 
Mudjekeewis. He strikes a blow with his club on 
the bear's forehead and stuns him; the result is that he 
disgorges all the water he has been drinking, and sends 
the canoe flying to the opposite shore, and once more 
the brothers escape. Finally, with the help of the 
magic head, the bear is stupefied, Mudjekeewis beats 
his brains out with the club, while the brothers cut up 
his body in little pieces, which all run off as ordinary- 
sized bears, and so the race of bears originated. 

These three cantos strike a sort of major chord giv- 
ing the key of the whole poem — the song of a 
hero, typical of a complete phase of life that is past; a 
state of peace, typical of the human ideal the whole 
race of Indians had attained through a mystical reve- 
lation; a fanciful mythology, typical of the cosmic 
processes of nature. To this harmony of atmosphere 
and environment the melody of Hiawatha's life is set. 

The story of Hiawatha's combat with his father is 
taken from the account in "Algic Researches." It 
represents Manabozho sitting dejected and silent, 
thinking how singular it was that he had never heard 
a word about his father or mother, and finally asking 
his grandmother about them. 

"Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful 
disposition, she dreaded telling him the story of his 
parentage, but he insisted on her compliance . . . 
and seemed to be rejoiced to hear that his father was 
living, for he had already thought in his heart to try 
and kill him. He told his grandmother he should set 



194/ LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

out in the morning. . . . She said it was a 
long way . . . but that had no effect to stop him, 
for he had now attained to manhood . . . and 
had a giant's strength and power . . . and every 
step he took covered a large surface. . . . The 
meeting took place on a high mountain in the West. 
His father was happy to see him and they spent days 
in talking. One evening he asked 'Is there not some- 
thing you dread here?' His father said, 'Yes, there is 
a black stone . . . the only thing earthly I am 
afraid of.' He said this as a secret, and in return 
asked his son the same question. . . . Manabozho 
affected great dread, 'le-ee, it is — it is — I cannot 
name it; I am seized with dread. ... It is the 
root of the apuhwa [bulrush], and he cried out 
'Kago! Kago!' when his father said he would get it, 
really wishing to urge him to do so that he might draw 
him into combat. . . . He asked his father if he 
had been the cause of his mother's death. The an- 
swer was 'Yes !' He then took up the rock and struck 
him. Blow led to blow, and here commenced an ob- 
stinate and furious combat which continued several 
days. Fragments of the rock can be seen in various 
places to this time. Manabozho drove him across 
rivers, mountains and lakes and came at last to the 
brink of this world. 'Hold!' cried he, 'my son, you 
know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me. 
. . . You can do a great deal of good to the peo- 
ple of this earth, which is infested with large serpents, 
beasts, and giants. . . . When you have finished 
your work, I will have a place provided for you. 
You will then sit with your brother Kabibboonocca in 
the north." 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 195 

The revengefulness and tricksyness characteristic 
of Manabozho in this story LongfelloAv has turned 
into a righteous indignation at his father's falseness, 
and a quiet reserve-force which carries sympathy to 
the young hero. How effective is the repetition of 
"And his heart was hot within him!" The hated 
Mudjekeewis, too, gains pathos and dignity by the 
touch that describes the toss and nod of his hoary head. 

In the poem, on his way back from the fight with 
Mudjekeewis, Hiawatha visits the old arrow-maker, 
and sees for the first time his daughter, Minnehaha. 
The incident of the visit to the arrow-maker occurs 
differently in the original legend, as we shall see 
when speaking of Hiawatha's wooing. 

Manabozho is represented as fasting before going 
to war with Pearl Feather; but Longfellow, instead 
of using this incident, describes Hiawatha's fast in 
Canto V as the customary one observed by young In- 
dians on reaching manhood, and incorporates in the 
account the Ojibway story of the poor young man, 
who having arrived at the age proper for fasting, his 
mother built him a little fasting-lodge in a retired spot 
where he would not be disturbed. As told in "Abo- 
riginal Archives," the story is as follows: 

"He amused himself for a few mornings by ram- 
bling about in the vicinity looking at the shrubs and 
wild flowers, and brought great bunches of them along 
in his hands, which led him often to think on the good- 
ness of the Great Spirit in providing all kinds of 
fruits and herbs for the use of man. This idea quite 
took possession of his mind, and he earnestly prayed 
that he might dream of something to benefit his peo- 
ple, for he had often seen them suffering for food." 



196 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

The remainder of the story is almost exactly par- 
aphrased by Longfellow, except that upon the fourth 
morning his father brought him food, and the son 
asked him to set it by for a particular reason until the 
sun went down, when he had his final trial with the 
visitor. He did not tell his father what had hap- 
pened, but took him to the spot where the lodge had 
stood when the corn was ripe and surprised him. "It 
is the friend of my dreams and visions," said the 
youth. "It is Mondamin, it is the spirit's grain," said 
the father. 

The description of Hiawatha's friends is partly 
imaginary and partly founded on legend. Chibiabos, 
according to one account which occurs in the story of 
"Hiawatha's Lamentation," was the brother of Hia- 
watha and greatly beloved by him. Longfellow sim- 
ply makes him a friend, and attributes to him the 
character of a poet. He also makes the fearfully 
strong man Kwasind a friend of Hiawatha's, and 
bases his character upon a legend told in the "Algic 
Researches." 

"Kwasind was a listless, idle boy. He would not 
play when other boys played, and his parents could 
never get him to do any kind of labor. He was al- 
ways making excuses. His parents noticed, however, 
that he fasted for days together, but they could not 
learn what spirit he supplicated. 'You neither hunt 
nor fish,' said his mother. 'I set my nets the cold- 
est days of winter without your assistance while you 
sit by the lodge fire. Go, wring out that net.' With 
an easy twist of his hands he wrung it short off with 
as much ease as if every twine had been a thin brittle 
fibre." 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 197 

The incidents of the rock he hurled, the logs he 
lifted, the beaver he secured, all occur just as Long- 
fellow uses them; except that he describes it all with 
the poet's revivifying touch. 

In the account of Manabozho in the "Algic Re- 
searches" there are but two sKght references to his 
canoe — one where he says to his grandmother, "Noko, 
get cedar bark and make me a line, whilst I make a 
canoe" ; and later, where it is said that he only had to 
wiU or speak and the canoe went. The Iroquois ac- 
count already given also speaks of the magic quahty 
of his canoe. With only these hints to go upon, it will 
be seen that the story of the building of the canoe de- 
scribed in Canto VII is entirely the work of the poet's 
fancy, except in so far as he has been careful to de- 
scribe a real Indian canoe. Then upon the general 
statement in the Iroquois account that Hiawatha 
cleared the rivers, he builds up the taking incident of 
Hiawatha's sailing with his friend Kwasind down the 
river Taquamenaw, and clearing it of all dead trees 
and sand-bars. 

His fishing with the fishing-rod of cedar, for the 
sturgeon, is described at considerable lengtl: in the 
Algonquin legend of Manabozho, and Longfellow 
has here followed the incidents very closely, making 
additions only which add to the poetic effect. Fol- 
lowing the hne of tasks his father had assigned him 
to rid the land of serpents, beasts, and giants, Hia- 
watha, having caught the king of fishes, next attempts 
to kill the giant. Pearl Feather, and the serpents that 
defended him. Longfellow found the material for 
this ui the "Algic Researches" substantially as fol- 
lows: 



198 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"After this, he commenced making preparations 
for a war excursion against the Pearl Feather, the 
Manito who lived on the opposite side of the great 
lake, who had killed his grandfather. The abode of 
this spirit was defended, first by fiery serpents, who 
hissed fire so that no one could pass them; and in the 
second place by a mass of gummy matter lying on 
the water, so soft and adhesive that whoever attempt- 
ed to pass was sure to stick there. . . He trav- 
eled rapidly night and day, for he had only to will 
or speak and the canoe went. At length he arrived 
in sight of the fiery serpents. . . He commenced 
talking as a friend to them; but they answered, 
'We know you, Manabozho, you cannot pass.' . . 
He then pushed his canoe as near as possible. All at 
once he cried out with a loud and terrified voice, 
'What is that behind you?' The serpents instantly 
turned their heads, when at a single word, he passed 
them. 'Well,' said he placidly, after he had got by, 
'how do you like my exploit?' He then took up his 
bow and arrows, and with deliberate aim shot them. 
. . Then he came to a soft gummy part of the lake 
called Pigiu-wagumee or Pitchwater. He took the 
oil and rubbed it on his canoe, and then pushed into it. 
. . He debarked in safety, and could see the lodge 
of the Shining Manito situated on a hill. He com- 
menced putting his arrows in order, and at dawn be- 
gan yelling and shouting with triple voices, 'Surround 
him! Run up!' making it appear he had many fol- 
lowers. Crying, 'It was you that killed my grand- 
father,' he shot his arrows, but with no effect, for his 
antagonist was clothed with pure wampum. The 
combat continued all day. He was now reduced to 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 199 

three arrows. At that moment a large woodpecker 
(the 7na-ma) flew past and lit on a tree. 'Mana- 
bozho,' he cried, 'your adversary has a vulnerable 
point; shoot at the lock of hair on the crown of his 
head.' He shot his first arrow so as only to draw 
blood. The Manito made one or two unsteady steps, 
but recovered himself. A second arrow brought 
him to his knees. But he again recovered. In so do- 
ing, he exposed his head and gave his adversary a 
chance to fire his arrow which penetrated deep and 
brought him a lifeless corpse to the ground. Mana- 
bozho uttered his saxv-saw-quan, took his scalp as a 
trophy, and taking the Manito's blood rubbed it on 
the woodpecker's head, the feathers of which are red 
to this day. He returned home singing songs of 
triumph and beating his drum. When his grand- 
mother heard him she came to the shore and welcomed 
him with songs and dancing, and he displayed his 
trophies." 

It is interesting to see how our poet in working 
over this material has left out or passed lightly over 
the tricksyness of Manabozho, perhaps most relished 
by the Indian mind. He has even forborne to make 
him scalp the Manito, and, instead, makes him carry 
off only the coat of wampum. The pitchy water is an 
element of the story he has made much of, and to con- 
trast merely the crude original description of this with 
the dreary slime the poet describes so effectively, is to 
have an object-lesson in the workings of the creative 
poetic faculty. 

In the original, a series of travels, exploits, and 
crafty, sometimes cruel adventures with bird and beast 
followed, which Longfellow omits. They would have 



200 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

made his Hiawatha much more whimsical and sav- 
age, and less dignified. From the chief one of these 
exploits, however, against the Prince of Snakes and 
his serpent tribe, which Longfellow left out — prob- 
ably because it would have added little to the similar 
snake victory just related — he has borrowed their 
taunts of him as a STiau-go-dai-a (coward) to put in 
the mouth of Pearl Feather; and from quite another 
story of "Mishosha, or the Magician of the Lakes," 
told by Schoolcraft in his second volume, he has bor- 
rowed the charm Hiawatha pronounced, in order to 
send his canoe forward — Chemaun. 

The story of "Hiawatha's Wooing" is charmingly 
elaborated from a few hints in Schoolcraft's account. 

"When Manabozho was preparing for the fight with 
Pearl Feather, having no heads for his arrows, his 
grandmother, Noko, told him of an old man living at 
some distance who could make them, so he sent her 
for some. She did not bring enough, so he sent her 
again, and then thinking to himself, 'I must find out 
the way to make these heads,' pretended he wanted 
some larger heads and sent her again. Then fol- 
lowing her at a distance, he went, saw the old man at 
work, discovered his process, and at the same time 
beheld his beautiful daughter and felt his breast beat 
with a new emotion. But he took care to get home 
before his grandmother, and commenced singing as if 
he had never left the lodge." 

Some pages further on, it is mentioned that, "hav- 
ing accomplished the victory over the reptiles, Mana- 
bozho returned to his former place of dwelling, and 
married the arrow-maker's daughter." Longfellow 
has made his Hiawatha discover the arrow-maker and 




Copyright, 1909. by L'lidet-.iood d-' Indei-wood, X. }'. 

The Falls of Minnehaha 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 201 

his daughter for himself without any deceit to No- 
komis, while on his way homeward after his contest 
with his father, already mentioned ; and the only trace 
of cunning towards his grandmother which remains in 
his story is shown in the attractive light of the natural 
reserve of the yoimg man who is as yet but half aware 
of the dreams cherished in his heart. 

The friction with Nokomis about wedding a stran- 
ger, and the whole pretty romance, as told in 
the tenth canto, is apparently due to Longfellow's 
happy fancy. The name Minnehaha, he himself tells 
us, he found in Miss Eastman's "Dacotah, or Legends 
of the Sioux," where she describes between Fort 
Snelling and the Falls of St. Anthony the "Little 
Falls, forty feet in height, on a stream that empties 
into the Mississippi. The Indians called these Mine- 
hah-hah, or laughing waters." 

The poet has made Hiawatha's Wedding Feast the 
opportunity for introducing us to Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
a mischievous sort of Indian Mercury. In fact, he 
evidently belongs to the family of wind gods. He 
also makes us further acquainted with Chibiabos, who 
sings some Indian songs, and with lagoo, the great 
boaster and story-teller, who relates the charming 
story of "Osseo, the Evening Star." 

The incident of Pau-Puk-Keewis building up the 
sand-dunes along the shores of Lake Suj^erior seems 
to be an invention of the poet — at least, there is no 
such incident in the story of Pau-Puk-Keewis as told 
in "Algic Researches." It is, however, quite in keep- 
ing with his character, which Longfellow everywhere 
develops on the model of a Mercury. 

lagoo's story is given in "Algic Researches": 



202 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"He was noted in Indian lore for having given ex- 
travagant narrations of whatever he had seen, heard, 
or accomplished. He told of a serpent he had seen, 
which had hair on its neck like a mane and feet re- 
sembling a quadruijed. Another time he told of 
mosquitoes of such enormous size that he staked his 
reputation on the fact that a single wing of one of 
them was sufficient for a sail to his canoe, and the 
proboscis as big as his wife's shovel. The character of 
this Indian story-teller for extravagance was so well 
known that his name became a proverb, and if any 
hunter or warrior undertook to embellish his exploits 
in telling of them his hearers would call out, 'So here 
we have lagoo come again.' " 

Notwithstanding his reputation as a story-teller, 
there are but few scraps of his stories to be found; 
but Longfellow cleverly puts into his mouth the story 
of Osseo, the Magician, which is little more than a 
poetized version of the story as told by the Algon- 
quins. 

The tale of the Red Swan to which lagoo refers, is 
also told in "Algic Researches": 

"Three brothers were hunting on a wager to see 
who would bring home the first game. They were to 
shoot no other animal but such as each was in the 
habit of killing. They set out different ways ; Odjib- 
wa, the youngest, had not gone far before he saw a 
bear, an animal he was not to kill, by the agreement. 
He followed him close, and drove an arrow through 
him, which brought him to the ground. Although 
contrary to the bet, he immediately commenced skin- 
ning him, when suddenly something red tinged all 
the air around him. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 203 

was perhaps deceived: but without effect, for the red 
hue continued. At length he heard a strange noise 
at a distance. It first appeared Hke a human voice, 
but after following the sound for some distance he 
reached the shores of a lake, and soon saw the object 
he was looking for. At a distance out in the lake sat 
a most beautiful red swan, whose plumage glittered 
in the sun, and who would now and then make the 
same noise he had heard. He was within long bow- 
shot, and, pulling the arrow from the bow-string up 
to his ear, took deliberate aim and shot. The arrow 
took no effect and he shot and shot again until his 
quiver was empty. Still the swan remained, moving 
round and round, stretching its long neck and dipping 
its bill into the water, as if heedless of the arrows 
shot at it. Odjibwa ran home and got all his own 
and his brothers' arrows and shot them all away. He 
then stood and gazed at the beautiful bird. While 
standing, he remembered his brothers' saying that in 
their deceased father's medicine rack were three magic 
arrows. Off he started, his anxiety to kill the swan 
overcoming all scruples. At any other time he would 
have deemed it sacrilege to open his father's medi- 
cine rack; but now he hastily seized the three arrows 
and ran back, leaving the other contents of the rack 
scattered over the lodge. The swan was still there. 
He shot the first arrow with great precision, and came 
very near to it. The second came still closer; as he 
took the last arrow, he felt his arm firmer, and, draw- 
ing it up with vigor, saw it pass through the neck of 
the swan a little above the breast. Still it did not pre- 
vent the bird from flying off, which it did, however, 
at first slowly, flapping its wings and rising gradual- 



204 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

ly into the air, and then flying off toward the sinking 
of the sun." 

The prosperous course of Hiawatha's life after his 
wedding is cleverly implied by the incidents described 
in Cantos XIII and XIV. For the Indian custom 
he introduces of blessing the cornfields, making 
Minnehaha, as Hiawatha's happy wife, defend the 
safety of the crops, he found warrant in "Aboriginal 
Archives," as follows: 

"To cast a protective spell, and secure the fields 
against vermin, protect the crops against blight, and 
make them prolific, the mother of the family chooses 
a suitable hour at night, when the children are at rest 
and the sky is overcast, and having divested herself of 
her garments trails her machecota behind her and per- 
forms the circuit of the field." 

It is well known that corn-planting and corn- 
gathering was the prerogative of the women, who con- 
sidered this work only a just equivalent for the hunt- 
ing duties of the men, as well as their duties in de- 
fending the villages from their enemies. The incident 
of the husking-scene is a bit of Indian jollity described 
in "Oneota," and told literally by the poet. The lit- 
eral meaning of the term, Wagemin, is a mass or 
crooked ear of grain ; but the ear of corn so-called is a 
conventional type of a little old man pilfering ears of 
corn in a corn-field. The word is taken as the basis 
of the cereal chorus, sung by the Northern Algonquin 
tribes. It is coupled with the phrase, Paimosaid. Its 
literal meaning is, he who walks, but the idea conveyed 
by it is "he who walks by night to pilfer corn." 

For the Indian manner of picture-writing, of carv- 
ing the sign of the family totem on the graveposts, or 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 205 

of painting on birch bark and skin the records of 
events, the lore of the medicine-men, the songs of the 
wabenos or the dreams of the jossakeeds, all of which, 
according to tradition, as Schoolcraft reports, Mana- 
bozho taught them, and which our poet therefore 
makes Hiawatha invent, Longfellow evidently 
studied carefully the descriptions and the plates given 
in the first of Schoolcraft's large folios. How ac- 
curately he followed these, and yet with how much 
more interesting and graphic a hand he colored the 
colorless explanations collected there, may appear 
from the following abstract of the account of the 
love-song. He has singled out this particular song 
among all the songs of the original, and it is to be no- 
ticed that he incorporates the look of the colored fig- 
ures in the plate as well as the gist of the explana- 
tion of what the mnemonic symbols mean in his poetic 
version of the song. 

"Figure 1. [representing in the plate a red figure 
standing], a person who affects to be invested with 
magic power to charm the other sex which makes him 
regard himself as a monedo or god. Fig. 2. [a man 
painted red sitting] is depicted beating a magic drum. 
He sings — Hear the sounds of my voice, of my song. 
Fig. 3. [same with the roof -line of a wigwam over- 
head]. He surrounds himself with a secret lodge. 
Fig. 4. [two red figures with one long arm]. He de- 
picts the intimate union of their affection by joining 
two bodies with one continuous arm. He sings, I can 
make her blush because I hear all she says of me. 
Fig. 5. [a red figure in a circle]. He represents her 
on an island. He sings. Were she on a distant island 
I could make her swim over. Fig. 6. [same lying 



206 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

down]. She is depicted asleep. He boasts of his 
magical powers which are capable of reaching her 
heart. He sings, Were she far off, even on the other 
hemisphere. Fig. 7. [a red heart in a circle] depicts 
a naked heart. He sings, I speak to yom- heart. 
The series of figures may be read thus: 1. It is my 
form and person that makes me great. 2. Hear the 
voice of my song — it is my voice. 3. I shield myself 
with secret coverings. 4. All your thoughts are 
known to me — blush! 5. I could draw you hence 
were you on a desert island. 6. Though you were on 
the other hemisphere. 7. I speak to your naked 
heart." 

The story of "Hiawatha's Lamentation" is found- 
ed on an Iroquois legend of the origin of the medicine 
dance. According to this story, Chibiabos was a 
brother of Manabozho's, and their father was a Man- 
ito, or a gi*eat spirit who married a mortal worfian. 

The Manitoes became jealous of these brothers, 
and caused Chibiabos to fall through the ice of one 
of the great lakes, although Manabozho had cautioned 
him not to separate himself from him. There the 
Manitoes hid his body. Manabozho wailed along the 
shores and waged war against all Manitoes, hurling 
many of them into the abyss. Six years he lamented, 
his face smeared with black, and calling 'Chibiabos.' 
The Manitoes consult how to appease him — especially 
the oldest and wisest Manito who had nothing to do 
with the death of Chibiabos. They build a sacred lodge 
close to his, prepare a feast, pipe and delicious to- 
bacco; then, each carrying a sack of bear, otter or 
lynx, skin full of medicines culled from all plants, in- 
vite him to feast. He raises his head, washes off his 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 207 

mourning, drinks the cup they offer in propitiation 
and as a rite, and, his melancholy departing, they sing 
and dance, and smoke the sacred pipe, and so was 
initiated the great medicine dance. The Manitoes 
then bring Chibiabos to life, but forbid him to enter 
the lodge. Through a chink they give him a burning 
coal and tell him to go and preside over the land of 
the dead and kindle a fire for his aunts and uncles. 
Manabozho goes to the Great Spirit, and then de- 
scending to earth confirms the mystery of the medicine 
dance and initiates those to v/hom he gives medicines, 
making offerings to Misukumigakwa, the mother of 
the earth, for the growth of medical roots. 

The white stone canoe in which Longfellow repre- 
sents Chibiabos as sailing is described in a story of a 
young man who goes to seek his dead lady-love in the 
land of souls. 

After journeying for some time, he came to the 
lodge of Chibiabos, who directs him on his way to the 
lake across which lay the land of souls. When he 
reaches the lake, he finds a canoe of shining white 
stone, with shining paddles. He enters the canoe, 
takes the paddles in his hands, when to his joy and sur- 
prise, on turning round, he beholds the object of his 
search in another canoe exactly the same. 

The materials for Cantos XVI and XVII are 
found principally in the story of Pau-Puk-Keewis in 
"Algic Researches." The setting of the scene, in 
Canto XVI, where Pau-Puk-Keewis comes and in- 
terrupts the story-telling of lagoo, is, of course, pure- 
ly fanciful. The story of the summer-maker which 
lagoo is telling, is followed exactly except in lan- 
guage. The incident of Pau-Puk-Keewis teaching 



208 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

the game of bowl is also fanciful, though the real In- 
dian game is exactly depicted by Longfellow. 

This game is played with thirteen pieces, nine of 
which are formed of bone and four of circular bits of 
brass. The right side of the bone pieces is red with 
edges and dots burned black [which represent differ- 
ent objects, each with a special value] with hot iron. 
The reverse is white. The brass pieces are convex 
and bright on the right side, concave and dull on the 
left. The game is won by the red pieces. All are 
shaken in a curiously carved wooden bowl and the 
luckiest throw is when all the pieces turn up red and 
No. 1 stands upright on the bright side of a brass 
disc. 

Life is given to the picture by representing Pau- 
Puk-Keewis as winning everything and finally stak- 
ing all his winnings on the young pipe-bearer, grand- 
son of lagoo, whom he also wins. In the Indian 
legend the pipe-bearer follows Pau-Puk-Keewis from 
attachment, and he is not the grandson of lagoo, who 
does not appear in the story at all. 

A considerable portion of the tale of Pau-Puk- 
Keewis is not used by Longfellow, who culls out such 
striking incidents as the ransacking of Hiawatha's 
lodge when the hero was absent, the killing of the 
raven and also the mountain chickens, and the mes- 
sage sent by the birds to their brother Hiawatha. 

In the Hunting of Pau-Puk-Keewis, Longfellow 
changes the place of the incidents in such a way as to 
greatly enhance the interest of the story. All the 
transformations into animals, with the exception of 
that into a snake, occur in the original legend before 
his conflict with Hiawatha, merely as a means of 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 209 

amusing himself, and not as a means of escape from 
his pursuer. In the original legend Pau-Puk-Keewis 
invents some ruses to escape Hiawatha, which Long- 
fellow has not used; for example, when Pau-Puk- 
Keewis found himself hard pressed, he climbed a large 
pine-tree, stripped it of all its leaves, threw them to 
the winds, and then went on. When Manabozho 
reached the spot, the tree addressed him. "Great 
chief," said the tree, "will you give me my life again? 
Pau-Puk-Keewis has killed me." Manabozho an- 
swered, "Yes," and it took him some time to gather the 
foliage together again. Pau-Puk-Keewis tried the 
same thing with various trees. Then he rode a long 
way on the back of an Elk, then broke up a large 
rock of sandstone which Manabozho was obliged to 
put together again. Then comes the incident of the 
serpent and the manito who tries to rescue Pau-Puk- 
Keewis, which Longfellow uses almost as it stands. 

The death of Kwasind follows exactly the original 
legend. 

"He performed so many feats of strength and skill, 
that he excited the envy of the Puck-wudj In-in-ee- 
sug, or fairies, who conspired against his life. 'For,' 
said they, 'if this man is suffered to go on in his career 
of strength and exploits, we shall presently have no 
work to perform. Our agency in the affairs of men 
must cease. He will undermine our power, and drive 
us, at last, into the water, where we must all perish, 
or be devoured by the wicked Neebanawbaig.' The 
strength of Kwasind was all concentrated in the crown 
of his head. This was, at the same time, the only vul- 
nerable part of his body ; and there was but one species 
of weapon which could be successfully employed in 



210 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

making any impression upon it. The fairies carefully- 
hunted through the woods to find the weapon. It was 
the burr or seed vessel of the white pine. They gath- 
ered a quantity of this article, and waylaid Kwasind 
at a point on the river, where the red rocks jut into 
the water, forming rude castles — a point which he was 
accustomed to pass in his canoe. They waited a long 
time, making merry upon these rocks, for it was a 
highly romantic spot. At last the wished-for object 
appeared, Kwasind came floating calmly down the 
stream, on the afternoon of a summer's day, languid 
with the heat of the weather and almost asleep. When 
his canoe came directly beneath the cliff, the tallest 
and stoutest fairy began the attack. It was a long 
time before they could hit the vulnerable part, but 
success at. length crowned their efforts, and Kwasind 
sank, never to rise more. 

"Ever since this victory the Puck-wudj In-in-ee 
have made that point of rock a favorite resort. The 
hunters often hear them laugh, and see their little 
plumes shake as they pass this scene on light summer 
evenings." 

The story of the strange unearthly guests who came 
to test the patience and nobility of Hiawatha's house- 
hold is based upon one of the most weird and whim- 
sical of Indian fancies, the legend of the Jeebi or Two 
Ghosts : 

"There lived a hunter in the far North. One dark 
evening in winter his wife, uneasily awaiting him, 
heard steps and went expecting to meet her husband, 
when she beheld two strange females, whom she bade 
enter. There was something peculiar about them. 
They would not come near the fire, but sat in a re- 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 211 

mote part of the lodge, shy and taciturn. 'Merciful 
spirit!' cried a voice from the opposite part of the 
lodge, 'there are two corpses clothed with garments.' 
The hunter's wife turned round trembling, but seeing 
nobody concluded it was the wind. At this moment 
her husband entered and threw down a large fat deer. 
'Behold what a fat animal!' cried the mysterious fe- 
males, and they ran and pulled off pieces of the 
whitest fat, eating greedily. The hunter and his wife 
looked on astonished but said nothing, supposing 
their guests had been famished. Day after day, how- 
ever, they repeated this unusual conduct. . . One 
evening when the hunter entered and they began to 
tear off the fat, the wife's portion, the wife could 
not altogether contain her anger, and the guests saw 
this and became uneasy. The good hunter inquired 
the cause, and his wife denied having used any hard 
words ; but when they went to bed he could not sleep 
for the sobs and sighs of the guests. 'Tell me,' he 
said, 'what pains you.' They replied that they had 
been treated with kindness and had not been slighted. 
Bitter lamentations had reached them in the place of 
the dead, the bereaved saying how they would de- 
vote their lives to make their dead happy if they 
could be restored to them. Three moons had been 
allotted for the trial, and half the time had passed 
successfully when the angry feelings of the wife had 
shown the irksomeness of their presence and made 
them resolve to go. They promised him success and 
bade him adieu, and when they ceased speaking total 
darkness filled the lodge. The hunter and his wife 
heard the door open and shut and never saw them 
more." 



212 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

In borrowing this story to serve as an incident in 
his hero's life, the poet has, with delicate intention, 
modified it in such a manner as to allow no shadow 
of reproach to fall upon Minnehaha for any lapse in 
hospitahty. Furthermore, instead of using it as an 
auspicious visit, as in the original story, where good 
fortune follows to the hunter, he has made it an omen 
of greater trial, indeed, almost a warning to Hia- 
watha of the famine and the death of Minnehaha 
which follow soon upon the visit of the Jeebi, and 
finally of that graver misfortune to Hiawatha's whole 
race, which leads to the hero's departure and the close 
of the poem — the coming of the white man to the red 
man's country. 

The story of the devastating famine is developed 
from a hint found in the legend of the Moose and 
Woodpecker, or Manabozho in distress, in "Algic 
Researches." 

"After Manabozho had killed the Prince of Ser- 
pents, he was living in a state of great want, com- 
pletely deserted by his powers as a deity, and not 
able to procure the ordinary means of subsistence. 
He was at this time living with his wife and chil- 
dren, in a remote part of the country, where he could 
get no game. He was miserably j)oor. It was win- 
ter and he had not the common Indian comforts." 

The elaboration of the story from this hint is en- 
tirely Longfellow's own, and in dignity and pathos 
far surpasses the trivial incidents of the Indian tale 
describing how Manabozho obtained food. The por- 
trayal of Minnehaha as well as her name is entirely 
fanciful. In none of the legends does the wife of 
Manabozho appear as a distinct personality. 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 213 

Canto XXI opens with the pretty allegory of the 
coming of summer, founded upon an O jib way tale 
called "Peboan and Seegwun." The poet has not 
embellished it in any particular, and has faithfully 
reproduced its delicate fancies, but he has made it 
serve his special purpose by symbolizing the Indian 
race as Peboan, and the white race as Seegwun — the 
irresistible conquering influence from the East, like 
that of spring over winter, which is destined to drive 
the tribes of Hiawatha westward. He weaves in 
next, accordingly, an account of the coming of the 
white people, "in a great canoe with pinions" ; and in 
this he seems to have worked upon a hint or two from 
the mouth of a Delaware Indian as given in Hecke- 
welder's "Historical Account of the Indian Na- 
tions." 

"A great many years ago, when men with a white 
skin had never been seen in this land, some Indians 
out fishing where the sea widens, espied at a distance 
something remarkably large floating on the water. 
Returning and telling their countrymen what they 
had seen, they all hurried out together and saw with 
astonishment ... a large fish, as some thought, 
others a big house floating on the sea ... in 
which the Great Spirit himself lived, and that he was 
coming to visit them. . To fitly welcome him they 
prepared meat for sacrifice . . and a grand 
dance to appease him in case he might be angry. , . 
The house, some say large canoe, stops, and a canoe 
of smaller size comes ashore with one man, in red 
clothes, who they think must be the Manito himself, 
and some others in it. He salutes them with a 
friendly countenance which they return. . They are 



214 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

lost in admiration. The dress and manners of the 
newcomers is a source of wonder." 

There is a similar account of the welcome given 
by the Indians to Cartier, who had arrayed himself in 
gorgeous clothing on his landing at the island of 
Hochelaga in the St. Lawrence. 

From one end of the land to the other there seems 
to have been a myth among the Indians that* a white 
race was to come from the East and conquer them. 
Lew Wallace has worked up this feeling most ef- 
fectively in his novel "The Fair God," which romances 
upon themes furnished by Prescott's "Conquest of 
Mexico." Dr. Brinton, whose studies in American 
archaeology are so extensive, is of the opinion that 
some forgotten trace of Chinese invasion or of 
Phoenician or Carthaginian voyages may have lurked 
in the background of aboriginal consciousness, and 
given rise to white-man myths or to such prophecies 
as this one of the Mayas of Yucatan, translated by 
Dr. Brinton: 

"What time the sun shall brightest shine 
Tearful will be the eyes of the King. 
Four ages yet shall be inscribed, 
Then shall come the holy priest, the holy god. 
With grief I speak what now I see. 
Watch well the road, ye dwellers in Itza, 
The Master of the earth shall come to us. 
Thus prophesies Nahu Peet, the Seer, 
In the days of the fourth age, 
At the time of its beginning." 

Upon such a supposition, or with the idea that so 
wise a leader as Hiawatha would recognize the in- 




Copr. Detroit Photographic Co. 

Temple Gate, Sand Island, Lake Superior 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 215 

evitable and refrain from vainly combating it, the 
poet has represented his hero as foreseeing not only 
the coming of the white man, but the general west- 
ward dispersion of his race. 

When relating in the last canto Hiawatha's serene 
resignation to the new order of things, his greeting 
of the priest, and his own departure, Longfellow 
doubtless bore in mind the zeal of the Jesuit mission- 
aries, who followed in Champlain's wake, after his 
founding of Quebec in 1608, and who penetrated far 
to the westward, converting the natives and meeting 
with such friendly reception as the poet makes Hia- 
watha give the "Pale-Face Priest of Prayer." We 
may even recognize in this "Black-Robe Chief" the 
figure of Paul le Jeune, the first of that devoted band 
of teachers, the history of whose labors constitutes so 
celebrated an episode in the settlement of New 
France. 

For the closing picture of Hiawatha's departure 
in his magic boat, the poet had only to follow the 
legend of Tarenyawago. His departure resembles 
that of the Algonquin hero Glooskap, and is strik- 
ingly similar to the departure also in a boat to Ava- 
lon of the old-world hero. King Arthur. The story 
of a hero who leaves his people, but one day promises 
to return, is as widespread as white-man myths. Ar- 
thur is to return, Glooskap is to return, and though 
Longfellow does not make use of it, the Iroquois be- 
lieve that Manabozho still lives on an ice flake in 
the Arctic Ocean, and they fear the white race will 
some day find his retreat and drive him off, when this 
world will end, for as soon as he puts his foot on earth 
again, it will take fire and all will perish. 



216 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY- 

A comparison of the Indian stories with Long- 
fellow's poem shows with what consummate art he 
has welded together the detached myths and customs 
of the North American Indian races, making of them 
a perfectly harmonious and unified whole. Our ad- 
miration is aroused both because of the human in- 
terest attaching to the fortunes of the hero, around 
whom all the other incidents of the story group them- 
selves, and because of the poem's more general sig- 
nificance as a symbolic picture of the growth and 
decay and final blotting out of the Indian phase of 
civilization. 

The poem opens with the proclaiming of peace 
among the nations, which is significant of the close of 
a purely warlike and barbarous stage of humanity, 
and the making ready for the more pacific arts of 
peace. The time is ripe for the birth of the culture 
hero, who stands as the incarnation of the growing 
life and art of his nation. His education is such as 
to fit him for the duties he is to fulfil for his race. 
His life is spent in righting injustices and instructing 
his fellows in agricultural arts, the 'art of writing and 
so on. He is aided in this by his two friends, Chibia- 
bos and Kwasind. His marriage with Minnehaha 
completes the sum of his happiness; but he has no 
sooner attained this zenith of prosperity in his do- 
mestic relations and in his relations with his fellow- 
men than clouds begin to gather? Troubles thicken 
about him. The lamentation over-Chibiabos, the mis- 
chief-making of Pau-Puk-Keewis, the death of 
Kwasind, succeed one another. Then the visit of the 
ghosts casts its ill-omened shadow. Famine and the 
death of Minnehaha follow. Last of all, the white 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 217 

man's foot comes to tread down into oblivion the whole 
Indian race. 

Freiligrath, who translated Hiawatha into Danish, 
thought the contact between myth and history too 
sudden in the last two cantos and Longfellow ac- 
cepted the criticism, writing to him, "What you say 
is very true . . but how could I remedy it?" 

I cannot agree with any such criticism. If "Hia- 
watha" were, simply an account of the mythic history 
of the Indians, Freiligrath's opinion might have some 
weight. But, as we have seen, the poet gives to the 
myths the significance of a symbol, standing for the 
culminating phase of Indian life, and in so doing 
throws into them, if not any special, yet general 
truths of history. The facts he borrows from his- 
tory, on the other hand, he does not introduce in an 
accurate historical manner, but brings them into har- 
monious relations with the mythical part of the poem 
by generalizing them and making them also stand 
symbolically for that conquering phase of life — 
namely, the Christian — destined to blot out the Indian 
phase. 

Longfellow was also accused of having borrowed 
from the Finnish epic, the "Kalevala." Such an ac- 
cusation could reflect only upon the ignorance of the 
persons making it. The resemblances between the 
Kalevala and the Hiawatha legends do not extend 
beyond a certain similarity in the general characteris- 
tics of the myths. In both, all inanimate objects are 
represented as having life and the power of speech. 
Magic is also an ever-present element. There are 
other resemblances which arise from the permeation 
of the myths with cosmic elements, but in detail the 



218 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

stories have hardly a point in common. The stage 
of civihzation depicted in the "Kalevala" is very dif- 
ferent from that in the Hiawatha legends; the man- 
ners and customs are those of a people advanced much 
farther along the road to culture. Lemminkauieu, 
or Kaukomieli, in some of his characteristics re- 
minds one of Pau-Puk-Keewis and Kwasind com- 
bined: it comes from the fact that all three are evi- 
dently beings whose chief attributes have been bor- 
rowed from the winds. Such similarities as do exist 
are to be traced to the very general resemblances of 
the original legends, and are not in any sense due to 
conscious borrowing. There is one scene in the 
"Kalevala" that may have given the poet a sugges- 
tion. It is in the description of Wainamoinen's prep- 
aration for the building of his boat. Both heroes have 
magic boats, but they are not at all alike in construc- 
tion. No Indian legend describes the building of 
Hiawatha's canoe, but the building of Wainamoinen's 
boat is described at considerable length. Pellerwoi- 
nen is sent to get timber. He goes to the forests 
and holds conversations with various trees as to the 
suitability of their timber for his purpose. The aspen 
and the pine both declare they will not do, but the 
oak, when it is addressed, says : 

"I for thee will gladly furnish 
Wood to build the hero's vessel, 
I am tall and sound and hardy, 
Have no flaws within my body. 
Three times in the month of summer, 
In the warmest of the seasons. 
Does the sun dwell in my tree-top. 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 219 

On my trunk the moonlight glimmers; 
In my branches sings the cuckoo, 
In my top her nestlings slumber." 

Very possibly this may have furnished a hint for 
the conversations held by Hiawatha with the trees 
and other objects which provided him with materials 
for his boat. This, however, is so slight a debt, and the 
incident has been so transmuted by the genius of the 
poet, as to place it entirely beyond criticism. There 
is one really striking resemblance in incident between 
the Finnish and the Indian poems in the description of 
the departure of the two heroes. Compare the fol- 
lowing with the Indian story and the close of Long- 
fellow's poem: 

"Thus the ancient Wainamoinen, 
In his copper-banded vessel, 
Left his tribe in Kalevala, 
Sailing o'er the rolling billows. 
Sailing through the azure vapors. 
Sailing through the dusk of evening, 
Sailing to the fiery sunset. 
To the higher-landed regions 
To the lower verge of heaven; 
Quickly gained the far horizon, 
Gained the purple-colored harbor. 
Here his bark he firmly anchored, 
Rested in his boat of copper; 
But he left his harp of magic, 
Left his songs and wisdom-sayings 
To the lasting joy of Suomi." 

Of the rhythm much has been said. Oliver Wend- 
ell Holmes spoke of it as having a fatal facility based 
upon physiological principles; namely, the recital of 



220 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

each line uses up the air of one natural expiration, so 
that we read as we naturally do, eighteen or twenty 
lines in a minute, without disturbing the normal 
rhythm of breathing, which is also eighteen or twenty 
breaths to a minute. It is the same as the rhythm of 
the "Kalevala" and was adopted by the poet as es- 
pecially suited to his purpose, for the parallelism and 
repetition characteristic of Finnish metre are just as 
much characteristic of Indian song. Into this un- 
doubtedly sing-song rhythm the poet has succeeded 
in putting a wonderful and fascinating variety of ef- 
fect. While much of the parallelism and repetition 
in the "Kalevala" is simply redundancy of expres- 
sion, in "Hiawatha" each repetition adds some vital 
touch to the thought and takes the reader along in 
the story. 

There is not a more popular poem than this among 
Longfellow's many popular poems. The criticisms 
and the parodies that have been showered upon it have 
one and all missed fire. Its originality and intrinsic 
beauty have won for it a place among the poems of 
all time. To offset the strictures of the unseeing or 
the facetious was the instant recognition of its worth 
by such men as Emerson, Hawthorne, Taylor, Ban- 
croft and numerous others, who, in letters to the poet, 
expressed their praise in no uncertain terms. Com- 
posers, too, have found "Hiawatha" greatly to their 
taste as a musical text — one of them, an English- 
man of genius, Coleridge Taylor, having written a 
cantata to words from "Hiawatha" that ranks as one 
of the great musical compositions of the present age. 

But perhaps there has been no greater tribute to the 
power of the poem than the fact that the descendants 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 221 

of the Ojibways give a dramatic performance of 
"Hiawatha" every year in honor of the poet. This 
festival is celebrated at Garden River on Lake Huron, 
and was, not long since, witnessed in its original set- 
ting by the poet's daughters. 

The Indians were deeply interested in the poem 
and its author, and at the time of the Sportsman's 
Show in Boston, 1900, among the important features 
of which were illustrations of Indian life given by a 
band of O jib way Indians, they visited the poet's 
home. This brought their enthusiasm to a climax and 
as a result they planned the first performance of their 
"Hiawatha" play. 

Miss Alice W. Longfellow gives a delightful de- 
scription of this performance in her "Visit to Hia- 
watha's People," which she kindly allows me to quote. 

"The play of 'Hiawatha' was performed on a rocky, 
thickly wooded point. Near the shore a platform was 
built around a tall pine-tree, and grouped around this 
were tepees and huts forming the Indian village. Be- 
hind this the ground sloped gradually upward, form- 
ing a natural amphitheatre. 

"As a prelude to the play a large pile of brushwood 
was lighted. Down the hillsides rushed the braves 
in war paint and feathers — 

'Wildly glaring at each other, 
In their hearts the feuds of ages.' 

After listening to the commands of the Great Spirit, 
the warriors threw down their weapons and war-gear 
and, leaping into the lake, washed the war-paint from 
their faces. Then they seated themselves and smoked 
the peace-pipe. 



222 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"The second scene showed old Nokomis before her 
wigwam, singing a lullaby to the little Hiawatha in 
his linden cradle. Then, the scene changing, Noko- 
mis led the boy Hiawatha out upon the stage and 
taught him how to shoot the bow and arrows, while 
the warriors stood around watching and applauding 
when he hit the mark. 

"The fourth scene was the journey of Hiawatha in 
his manhood after his battle with Mudjekeewis, a pic- 
turesque figure striding through the woods flecked 
with sunshine and shadow. 

'Only once his pace he slackened. 
Paused to purchase heads of arrows 
Of the ancient arrow-maker.' 

"The wigwam of the ancient arrow-maker was 
placed far from the rest in the shad*e of the trees, to 
give an idea of distance. The arrow-maker, himself 
a very old man, sat by the entrance, cutting arrow- 
heads; his daughter, a modest Indian maiden, stood 
beside him with downcast eyes, while the stranger 
paused to talk with her father. 

"This scene was followed by the return of Hia- 
watha to the land of the Dakotahs. Again the old 
man sat in the doorway, and by him was Minnehaha, 
'plaiting mats of flags and rushes.' 

"She stood modestly on one side while Hiawatha 
urged his suit, and then putting her hand in his, she 
followed him home through the forest. 

"Then came the wedding dances, full of life and 
spirit, the figures moving always round and round in 
a circle, with a swaying motion, the feet scarcely 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 223 

lifted from the ground. Under the pine-tree, tall and 
erect, with head and eyes uplifted, stood the musi- 
cian, chanting his songs with a strange rhythmical 
cadence, and accompanying them on the flat Indian 
drum. 

"The old Nokomis in one corner guarded with a 
war club a group of«'maidens who were dancing all the 
while, and the braves circling round slyly stole one 
maiden after another, until Nokomis was left alone. 
Then followed the caribou dance, the dancers with 
arms uplifted like horns, knocking and striking one 
another; the bear dance with its clumsy, heavy mo- 
tion; and the snake dance, where the dancers wound 
and twisted in and out, round and round ; and always 
the singer continued his rhythmic chant. 

"Last came the gambling dance, the favorite with 
the actors. A mat of rushes was placed on the 
ground, and on each side kneeled the contestants. At 
the back stood the old singer, drumming and chant- 
ing advice to the players. On each side were grouped 
the women watching the game, their bodies swaying in 
time to the music, while the players grew more and 
more excited, arms, heads, bodies, all moving in per- 
fect rhythm, calling out and shouting as one by one 
pouches, knives, belts, etc., were passed to the winning 
side. One side hid a small metal counter under one 
of two moccasins, while the other side tried to find it. 

"This game was interrupted by a sudden shout, and 
across the water was seen approaching a canoe, and 
seated in it the missionary, 'the black-robed chief, the 
prophet.' On the shore he was graciously received 
by Hiawatha, and led to a wigwam for refreshment 



224 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

and repose. Then he addressed the attentive tribes in 
Ojibway: 

'Told his message to the people. 
Told the purport of his mission.* 

Thereupon Hiawatha arose, greeting the missionary, 
took farewell of all his people and — 

'On the clear and luminous water 
Launched his birch canoe for sailing.' 

With hands uplifted he glided slowly out upon the 
lake, floating steadily onward across the rippling 
water toward the setting sun." 

In the study at Craigie House is the formal invita- 
tion received by the poet's daughters upon this occa- 
sion. It is a beautiful piece of birch bark about eight- 
een inches long and ten inches wide, with many tinted 
lichens still clinging to it. In one corner the outer 
bark is stripped off to show the under reddish bark 
forming a medallion, upon which is sketched in sepia 
an Indian's head. In the center, the outer bark has 
been removed in a similar way to form a slanting scroll 
upon which the invitation is written in Ojibway. 

Simple and genuine is its wording and one can but 
wish the poet himself might have shared in this ex- 
pression of admiration and love : 

"Ladies: We loved your father. The memory of 
our people will never die as long as your father's song 
lives, and that will live forever. 

"Will you and your husbands and Miss Longfellow 
come and see us and stay in our royal wigwams on an 



THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 225 

island in Hiawatha's playground, in the land of the 
Ojibways? We want you to see us live over again 
the life of Hiawatha in his own country. 

"Kabaoosa^ 
"Wabumasa." 

The whole is set off by an appropriate frame. It 
is at once a unique and artistic memorial of the es- 
timation in which the poet is held by the race whose 
gift of legend and fancy has been so sympathetically 
accepted by him — a graceful token that, in the realm 
of imagination, at least, the American and the Indian 
shall be known as kin. 



IN CAMBRIDGE 



"/ need not praise the sweetness of his song. 
Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds 
Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong 
The 7iew moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along. 
Full without n^oise and whispers in his reeds. 

*'With loving breath of all the winds his name 
Is blown about the world, but to his friends 
A sweeter secret hides behind his fame. 
And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim 
To murmur a God bless you! and then ends. 
****** 

"Surely if skill in song the shears may stay 

And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss. 
If our poor life be lengthened by a lay. 
He shall not go, although his presence may. 
And the next age in praise shall double this." 
James Russell Lowell. 



VI 



DURING the larger part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Mr. Longfellow was associated with the 
intellectual and social life of Cambridge. 
Under these circumstances, one might expect that 
much of his poetry would reflect the atmosphere of 
this environment. Little of Cambridge, however, 
comes into his work further than an intense apprecia- 
tion for nature as he saw it from his study windows, 
his own garden, or in the neighborhood of his beau- 
tiful home, extending to his favorite walk into Boston 
over the West Boston bridge. 

There are a few charming glimpses into the sanctity 
of his home life. Such are the "Ode to a Child," 
"Resignation," the "Children's Hour," and "Chil- 
dren," to which should be added the exquisite sonnet, 
the "only love poem he ever wrote," dedicated to Mrs. 
Longfellow, entitled "The Evening Star," though 
at first mentioned by the poet in his diary as "Hes- 
perus": "The Indian summer still in its glory. 
Wrote the sonnet 'Hesperus' in the rustic seat of 
the old apple-tree." 

"Lo! in the painted oriel of the West, 

Whose panes the sunken sim incarnadines, 
Like a fair lady at her casement shines 

329 



230 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

The evening star, the star of love and rest ! 
And then anon she doth herself divest 

Of all her radiant garments, and reclines 

Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines. 
With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed. 
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus ! 

My morning and my evening star of love! 
My best and gentlest lady ! even thus, 

As that fair planet in the sky above, 
Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night, 
And from thy darkened window fades the light." 



In the ode "To a Child," side by side with the lovely 
portraiture of the child on its mother's knee, there are 
fascinating bits of description within and without 
the house so famous for its historical and literary as- 
sociations. 



'Through these once solitary halls 
Thy pattering footstep falls. 

The sound of thy merry voice 
Makes the old walls 

Jubilant, and they rejoice 
With the joy of thy young heart, 

O'er the light of whose gladness 

No shadows of sadness 
From the sombre background of memory start. 

'Once, ah, once, within these walls, 
One whom memory oft recalls. 

The Father of his Country, dwelt. 
And yonder meadows broad and damp 
The fires of the besieging camp 

Encircled with a burning belt. 
Up and down these echoing stairs, 
Heavy with the weight of cares, 



IN CAMBRIDGE 231 

Sounded his majestic tread; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 

Weary both in heart and head. 

*'But what are these grave thoughts to thee? 
Out, out! into the open air! 
Thy only dream is liberty, 

Thou carest little how or where. 

*'I see thee eager in thy play. 

Now shouting to the apples on the tree. 
With cheeks as round and red as they ; 
And now among the yellow stalks. 
Among the flowering shrubs and plants, 

As restless as the bee. 
Along the garden walks. 

The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace; 
And see at every turn how they efface 

Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, 
That rise like golden domes 
Above the cavernous and secret homes 

Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants. 
Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, 
Who, with thy dreadful reign. 
Dost persecute and overwhelm 
These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm! 

"What, tired already! With those suppliant looks, 
And voice more beautiful than a poet's books. 
Or murmuring sound of water as it flows, 
Thou comest back to parley with repose ! 
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree. 
With its overhanging golden canopy 
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues 
And shining with the argent light of dews, 
Shall for a season be our place of rest. 

* 'Beneath us, like an oriole's pendant nest, 



232 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

From which the laughing birds have taken wing, 
By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing. 
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam; 
A sailless vessel drops adown the stream, 
And like it, to a sea as wide and deep, 
Thou driftest down the tides of sleep." 

How much the child-life of his home meant to him 
is reflected in his other poems on his children, by which 
he has endeared himself to many a young heart. 
Who, as a small child, has not wondered if "Grave 
Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith, with golden 
hair," could really be children of flesh and blood, 
they seemed such far-away and fairy-like beings? 
Long, long after, he again addressed the children, 
this time not his own, but the school children 
of Cambridge, who responded to the happy thought 
of presenting him on his seventy-second birth- 
day with an armchair made from the "spreading 
chestnut tree" under which the village blacksmith shop 
stood. This substantial chair still stands in his study, 
in a shape more lasting than if it had been preserved 
as a tree. The wood has been ebonized, and with its 
carvings of horse-chestnut leaves and blossoms and 
fruit, is a beautiful as well as an appropriate re- 
incarnation of the tree. Under the cushion is an in- 
scription : "To the author of 'The Village Blacksmith.' 
This chair made from the wood of the spreading chest- 
nut-tree, is presented as an expression of grateful re- 
gard and veneration by the children of Cambridge, 
who, with their friends, join in best wishes and con- 
gratulations on this anniversary, February 27, 1879." 
In raised German letters around the seat is added a 
verse from the poem — 



IN CAMBRIDGE 233 

"And children coming home from school 
Look in at the open door; 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 
Like chaff from a threshing floor." 

The prosaic city authorities of Cambridge had the 
tree removed in spite of the protests of the poet and 
others in 1876, on the ground that it imperiled 
drivers of heavy loads who passed under it. The 
children, however, rescued it from annihilation, and 
one likes to think of the poet writing, from the en- 
circling arms of the horse-chestnut tree his verse 
had made famous nearly forty years before, his poem 
of acknowledgement to the Cambridge children. Not 
the least interesting episode of the poet's life was his 
appearance on the platform at the children's festival 
in Sanders' Theatre, when Cambridge celebrated its 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, in 1880, Decem- 
ber 28th. The chair stood on the platform where all 
the children could see it, and, to the intense delight of 
the assembled youngsters, the poet made a short 
speech, a most unusual concession on his part. 

So much was the poet honored by the little boys 
and girls of the town that, it is said, hundreds of 
them ventured to present themselves at the door of 
the house, where they were always welcomed. 

Mr. Scudder relates a story told b}^ Luigi Monti, 
who for many years dined with the poet every Sat- 
urday, which illustrates the pleasure he derived from 
the appreciation showered upon him by children. 

"One Christmas, as he [Luigi Monti] was walking 
toward the house, he was accosted by a girl about 
twelve years old, who inquired where Mr. Longfellow 
lived. He told her it was some distance down the 



234 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

street, but if she would walk along with him he would 
show her. When they reached the gate, she said : 

" 'Do you think I can go into the yard?' 

'* 'Oh, yes,' said Signor Monti. 'Do you see the 
room on the left? That is where Martha Washing- 
ton held her receptions a hundred years ago. If you 
look at the windows on the right you will probably 
see a white-haired gentleman reading a paper. Well, 
that will be Mr. Longfellow.' 

"The child looked gratified and happy at the un- 
expected pleasure of really seeing the man whose 
poems she said she loved. As Signor Monti drew 
near the house he saw Mr. Longfellow standing with 
his back against the window, his head out of sight. 
When he went in, the kind-hearted Italian said: 

" 'Do look out of the window and bow to that little 
girl, who wants to see you very much.' 

" 'A little girl wants to see me very much? Where 
is she?' He hastened to the door, and, beckoning with 
his hand, called out: 'Come here, little girl; come here, 
if you want to see me.' She came forward, and he 
took her hand and asked her name. Then he kindly 
led her into the house, showed her the old clock on 
the stairs, the children's chair, and the various souve- 
nirs which he had gathered." 

The smithy of the poem was near the poet's house 
and was passed daily by him. When he first speaks 
of the poem, he calls it a "new psalm of life," but 
writing to his father a year later he says: "There will 
be a kind of a ballad on a blacksmith in the next 
Knickerbocker.^' 

"The Open Window" commemorizes another his- 
torical house, though in such a vague manner that 



IN CAMBRIDGE 235 

the poem might be attached to any home which no 
longer fulfilled its functions of family life. 

"The old house by the lindens 
Stood silent in the shade, 
And on the graveled pathway 
The light and shadow played. 

"I saw the nursery windows 
Wide open to the air ; 
But the faces of the children, 
They were no longer there." 

This old house stood on Brattle Street, at the cor- 
ner of Sparks Street, and is now the third house from 
the corner. It was known as the Lechmere house, 
having been built by Richard Lechmere. Here 
Baron Riedesel was quartered as prisoner of war 
after the surrender of Burgoyne, and here the Bar- 
oness wrote her name upon the window-pane with a 
diamond — material, surely, for romance ; but the poet 
was evidently lost to every aspect except that of the 
departed children, probably because at the time he 
was so happy in his own children. 

"The birds sang in the branches, 
With sweet, familiar tone; 
But the voices of the children 
Will be heard in dreams alone!" 

It is pleasant to look through the poet's eyes at the 
scenes he so much loved. Even his delight in the 
sea could not blot out his peculiarly affectionate re- 
gard for his Cambridge home. He, more than once, 
notes with delight in his diary, after a summer by the 



236 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

sea, that they are back in Cambridge, and that the 
children are wild with joy. He comments upon the 
coming of spring: "For my own part I am delighted 
to hear the birds again. Spring always reminds me 
of the Palingenesis, or re-creation of the old 
alchemists, who believed that form is indestructible 
and that out of the ashes of a rose the rose itself could 
be reconstructed — if they could only discover the great 
secret of nature. It is done every spring beneath our 
windows and before our eyes, and is always so won- 
derful and so beautiful." Later on this thought took 
form in poetry, but he used the imagery of the sea, 
and introduced a note of melancholy of which there 
was not a suspicion in his first joyous outburst when 
watching the oncoming of spring from his own win- 
dows. This should really be classed among his poems 
of the sea, so fine is the picture of North Shore 
scenery given in the first stanzas. 



"I lay upon the headland-height, and listened 
To the incessant sobbing of the sea 

In caverns under me. 
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and 

glistened, 
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst 
Melted away in mist. 



'Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started; 
For round about me all the sunny capes 

Seemed peopled with the shapes 
Of those whom I had known in days departed. 
Appareled in the loveliness which gleams 

On faces seen in dreams. 



IN CAMBRIDGE 237 

"A moment only, and the light and glory- 
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore 

Stood lonely as before ; 
And the wild roses of the promontory 
Around me shuddered in the wind and shed 

The petals of pale red. 

"There was an old belief that in the embers 
Of all things their primordial form exists, 

And cunning alchemists 
Could re-create the rose with all its members 
From its own ashes, but without the bloom, 
Without the lost perfume. 

"Ah, me! What wonder-working, occult science 
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more 

The rose of youth restore? 
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance 
To time and change, and for a single hour 
Renew this phantom-flower?" 

The remainder of the poem is dominated by the 
idea that the secret of nature for which the old 
alchemists looked has not been found, rather than by 
the thought of the loveliness of the idea as he ex- 
pressed it in his first thought. 

The most delightful of his nature-pictures go back 
to his early days at Craigie House, when not only his 
poetry, but his diary is full of the beauty and the glory 
constantly being wafted in to him through his open 
window. The spell of its nights was upon him when 
he wrote sitting at his window "on one of the balmiest 
nights of the year" — 

"I heard the trailing garments of the night 
Sweep through her marble halls, 
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 
From the celestial walls!" 



238 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

The far away light of stars vibrates in 

"There is no light in earth or heaven, 
But the cold light of stars; 
And the first watch of the night is given 
To the red planet Mars." 

"On a beautiful summer night," he explains, he 
wrote this poem. "The moon, a little strip of silver, 
was just setting behind the groves of Mount Au- 
burn, and the planet Mars blazing in the southeast. 
There was a singular light in the sky." 

Upon another occasion it is the moonlight he gazes 
upon from his window that dominates the scene. The 
planet Mars brought to his mind the symbol of the 
unconquerable will: 

"The star of the unconquered will, 
He rises in my breast, 
Serene, and resolute, and still. 
And calm, and self-possessed." 

But with the moonlight comes the thought of En- 
dymion awakened by the moon's kiss : 

"The rising moon has hid the stars; 
Her level rays, like golden bars, 
Lie on the landscape green. 
With shadows brown between. 

"And silver white the river gleams, 
As if Diana, in her dreams. 
Had dropt her silver bow 
Upon the meadows low. 

"On such a tranquil night as this. 
She awoke Endymion with a kiss. 
When, sleeping in the grove, 
He dreamed not of her love. 



IN CAMBRIDGE 239 

"Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, 
Love gives itself, but is not bought ; 
Nor voice, nor sound betrays 
Its deep, impassioned gaze. 

"It comes — the beautiful, the free. 
The crown of all humanity — 
In silence and alone 
To seek the elected one." 

Another poem which seems especially identified 
with nature as he saw and felt it about him in his 
home is "Flowers." This he tells us he wrote to send 
with a bouquet of autumnal flowers. "I still remem- 
ber the great delight I took in its composition, and 
the bright sunshine that streamed in at the southern 
windows as I walked to and fro, pausing ever and 
anon to note down my thoughts." In fact all the 
poems he wrote at this time seem to have blossomed 
into being under the influence of nature, even when 
the subject was wholly introspective. "The Psalm 
of Life,"' which, though it was a voice from his in- 
most heart at a time when he was "rallying from de- 
pression," doubtless owes to the bright summer 
morning upon which it was written, much of its hope- 
fulness. This poem should not be passed over with- 
out mention being made of the extraordinary moral 
effect it had upon many of its readers at the time of 
its appearance. 

"It was copied far and wide," writes Samuel Long- 
fellow. "Young men read it with delight; their 
hearts were stirred by it as by a bugle summons. It 
roused them to high resolve, and wakened them to a 
new sense of the meaning and worth of life. Thirty 
years later, a man high in the community for in- 



240 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

tegrity and generosity, came to his old professor in 
chemistry, and, reminding him of his having one day 
read this poem to his class, added, 'I feel that I can 
never repay you for the good you did me that day 
in reading us the "Psalm of Life." I grasped its 
spirit instantly and made it the inspiration of my life.' 
Mr. Sumner tells us of a classmate of his who was 
saved from suicide by reading this poem. An inci- 
dent told of an officer in the Franco-German war of 
1870 also illustrates the wonderful hold this poem had 
upon those who were in any way overwhelmed by life's 
fatalities : 

"In the midst of the siege of Paris, a venerable 
man presented himself to me, bowed with grief. He 
said, 'I am Monsieur R., Procureur- General of the 
Cour de Cassation. I have just learned that my son 
has been arrested by the German authorities at Ver- 
sailles on an entirely unfounded charge. He is to be 
sent to a German fortress and may be condemned to 
death. I am here alone and helpless. I feel that my 
mind will give way if I cannot find occupation; can 
you tell me of some English book I can translate into 
French?' I promised to do so and he left me. Within 
an hour or two, however, I received a line from him 
saying he had found what he required. A few days 
afterward he came again to see me; but now erect, 
his face bright with hope, his voice clear and strong. 
He said, 'I have been translating Longfellow's 
"Psalm of Life" and I am a new man; I feel that my 
mind is saved and that faith and hope have taken the 
place of despair.' " 

Of "Footsteps of Angels" the poet wrote: "A 
lovely morning. Sat at home and wrote a third 'Psalm 



IN CAMBRIDGE 241 

of Life' "; and of "The Reaper and the Flowers," he 
wrote: "A beautiful holy morning within me. I was 
softly excited, I knew not why, and wrote with peace in 
my heart and not without tears in my eyes." A charm- 
ing story is connected with this poem, showing once 
more the hold he was apt to take upon the minds of 
children. A lady, who had bought a copy of "Voices 
of the Night," gave it to her little girl, after reading to 
her "The Reaper and the Flowers." The same even- 
ing the child on repeating her prayers said: "Mother, 
do you not think 'The Reaper' beautiful enough to 
mix with my prayer this lovely moonlight night?" 

Many of the entries in his diary at this time touch 
upon fancies so lovely that one wonders why they 
were not transformed into verse. Take a few at 
random: "Raining, and the birds shrieking! The 
storm will thresh all the blossoms from the trees. 
Where do the birds hide themselves in such storms? 
At what firesides do they dry their feathery cloaks? 
At the fireside of the great sun, to-morrow — not be- 
fore; they must sit in wet clothes till then." 

"How glorious these spring mornings are! I sit by 
an open window and inhale the pure morning air 
and feel how delightful it is to live! Peach, pear, and 
cherry trees are all in blossom together in the 
garden." 

"Nothing can well surpass the beauty of Cambridge 
at this season. Every tree is heavy with blossoms, 
and the whole air laden with perfume. My residence 
here in the old Craigie House is a paradise." 

"A thunderstorm is now sailing up majestically 
from the southwest with almost unbroken volleys of 
thunder. The wind seems to be storming a cloud- 



242 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

redoubt in gallant style, and marches onward with 
dust, and green banners of the trees waving, and rattle 
of musketry, and occasional heavy cannonading, and 
an explosion like the blowing up of a powder wagon." 

"Oh, what glorious, glorious moonlight nights! I 
never beheld in Italy aught more passing fair. The 
river in the meadow in front of my house spreads out 
into a silver lake, and the black shadows lie upon the 
grass like engravings in a book. Autumn has writ- 
ten his rubric on the illuminated leaves. The wind 
turns them over and chants like a friar." 

"A glorious day. Could not stay at home, but 
went alone to Fresh Pond. What a lovely lake it is, 
with the forest hanging round it — like a mirror with a 
garland of oak leaves ! Took a boat and floated away 
rocked in dreams." 

"To-day I heard the song of the bluebird, the 
herald of spring. It is exquisite music to my ear. 
It announces the approach of Nature's great proces- 
sion of grass, leaves, flowers and waving cornfields. 
The spring, the spring, the ever beautiful! with its 
rushing waters, and floating clouds like thistle-down, 
and buds whose pale parting lips prophesy delight 
and love." 

The entrancing vision of the Charles River seems 
ever present in the poet's mind. From the windows 
of Craigie House can still be seen the river 

"that in silence windest 
Through the meadows, bright and free." 

The poet looked over fields and meadows to his 
cherished stream. Now a trim park, the Longfellow 



IN CAMBRIDGE 243 

Memorial Park, separates the house from the river. 
The fields were undoubtedly more redolent of poetic 
possibilities than the park, but how much better the 
park than perhaps towering apartment houses, blot- 
ting out the view so precious because of its associa- 
tion with the poet's muse. He so loved the river 
that we imagine the river nymphs casting their spell 
of sympathy about him and sustaining him in his 
trials as aforetime the Oceanides did Prometheus. 
Nymphs that dwell in the depths of the river that en- 
circles Cambridge would surely be akin to the nymphs 
of the river that encircled the earth, and would sing 
their devoted laj^s to the spirit ear of the poet. 

There are greater changes to record in regard to 
the bridge upon which the poet "stood at midnight." 
The old wooden bridge has given place to a stone one, 
the handsomest bridge Boston boasts, and the tide that 
swept and eddied through "the wooden piers" has 
had its life sapped out of it by the dam, recently con- 
structed across the mouth of the river. Now the 
Charles is always flood-tide, no longer to be moved by 
the steady rhythmic surge of the ocean, but only by 
the fickle winds. The writer suspects that the river 
resents being deprived of its supply of salt, and takes 
its revenge by chilling the spring East winds to a 
pitch of rancorousness far beyond that of former 
springs — though our poet does speak somewhere of 
the last day of May "presenting the heavens like a 
crystal goblet, full of sunshine iced with an East 
wind." 

When Mr. Longfellow first took his walks over this 
bridge in 1838 and 1839, Cambridge was still a vil- 
lage, and as remembered by his biographer, Mr. Sam- 



244 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

uel Longfellow, "the Common had not long before 
been enclosed. The First Parish Church, in all the 
freshness of its quasi-Gothic, had but lately taken its 
post as sentinel at the end of the burying ground op- 
posite to the 'lowly nun' of Christ Church. The great 
elms were still in the square, untouched by the arbor- 
icidal instincts of the authorities and spreading 
their ample shelter for the omnibus drivers and their 
waiting horses. The omnibus, called the 'hourly,' 
from its times of going, was the only public means of 
communication with Boston, and if infrequent, was 
accommodating, since, on command, it called for and 
left its passengers at their houses. The fare was a 
quarter of a dollar, so the students generally com- 
bined economy with exercise and walked in and out of 
town, as Boston was called." 

Many are the walks over this bridge recorded 
by the poet. Sometimes a walk in Boston Com- 
mon rounded up the journey into town, some- 
times a reading by Mrs. Kemble, a concert or 
a visit to the historian Prescott in the first blush of his 
fame, as well as dinners with other celebrities. In 
fact, what of altogether delightful did not the poet 
experience as the reward of those walks to town! 
The road, as he followed it, must have been a much 
prettier one than it would be now, through built-up 
streets instead of through a sparsely settled district, 
where tidal meadows kept up their pendulous swing 
between the charm of laughing waters and the 
lugubriousness of mud banks. A boulevard, wide 
and beautiful, with its central garden of trees and 
shrubs, connects the poet's bridge with Harvard 



IN CAMBRIDGE 245 

Bridge and continues beyond, one day to join the en- 
circling Parkway which is rapidly becoming one of 
Boston's greatest beauties. If the poet were walking 
in town to-day, instead of branching off by way of 
Main Street to reach the West Boston Bridge, he 
would keep to Massachusetts Avenue, cross the Har- 
vard Bridge, from which the view is more beautiful 
than from the West Boston Bridge, and reach the 
heart of the city by the parkway of Commonwealth 
Avenue. A more beautiful walk through a closely 
built-up city it would be difficult to imagine. 

The Longfellow house is, of course, one of the most 
famous spots in Cambridge, eagerly picked out by 
all tourists, as the site which, above all, they wish to 
see. Even in these days when the muses sit discon- 
solate on Helicon, weeping tears because of their pub- 
lic neglect, he who could not be moved bj^ the sight 
of a poet's home would be fit for "treasons, stratagems 
and spoils." Add to this the fact that the Father of 
his Country lived in the house for nine months, taking 
care of the infant nation, while Martha Washington 
gave Twelfth-night parties to help keep the infant 
awake, and there gathers about the house a vari-col- 
ored halo of war, society and poetry that is perfectly 
irresistible. And add to this such guests as Queen 
Victoria's father, and Talleyrand, and one seems to 
touch in this house the history of the whole world. 
Some of this is due to the rich Mr. Craigie, who 
thought to pile up glory, with his wealth, for him- 
self, when he entertained in such princely style, and 
brought to his table guests of historical distinction; 
but the muses may cheer up, for after all, it is the poet 



246 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

who has immortalized the house with his happy chants 
to river, sky, and stars, which visited him in his study, 
when Mr. Craigie's widow had been reduced to rent- 
ing part of her house to eke out her husband's squan- 
dered income. The poet's own account of how he 
came there is full of interest : 

"The first time I was in Craigie House was on a 
beautiful summer afternoon in the year 1837. I came 
to see Mr. McLane, a law student, who occupied the 
southeastern chamber. The window blinds were 
closed, but through them came a pleasant breeze, and 
I could see the waters of the Charles gleaming in the 
meadows. McLane left his room and I took posses- 
sion of his room, making use of it as a library and 
study, and having the adjoining chamber for my bed- 
room. At first Mrs. Craigie declined to let me have 
rooms. I remember how she looked as she stood, in 
her white turban, with her hands crossed behind her, 
snapping her gray eyes. She had resolved, she said, 
to take no more students into her house. But her 
manner changed when I told her who I was. She 
said she had read 'Outre-Mer,' of which one num- 
ber was lying on her sideboard. She then took me 
all over the house and showed me every room in it, 
saying, as we went into each, that I could not have 
that one. She finally consented to my taking the 
rooms mentioned above, on condition that the door 
leading into the back entry should be locked on the 
outside. 

"The winter was a very solitary one, and the house 
very still. I used to hear Mrs. Craigie go down to 
breakfast at nine or ten in the morning, and go up 



IN CAMBRIDGE 247 

to bed at eleven at night. During the day she sel- 
dom left her parlor, where she sat reading the news- 
papers and the magazines — occasionally a volume of 
Voltaire. 

"During the following summer the fine old elms in 
front of the house were attacked by canker-worms, 
which, after having devoured the leaves, came spin- 
ning down in myriads. Mrs. Craigie used to sit by 
the open windows and let them crawl over her white 
turban unmolested. She would have nothing done 
to protect the trees from these worms; she used to 
say: 'Why, sir, they are our f ellow- worms ; they have 
as good a right to live as we have.' " 

As a result of this generous attitude, there is but 
one of those fine old sky-touching elms left, the "con- 
suming canker" having utterly disregarded their 
"right to live." 

Occasionally, as in "The Village Blacksmith," the 
poet stepped outside his study, even outside his own 
garden and fields, and quite away from the all-em- 
bracing Charles, to celebrate some not too-far distant 
bit of scenery. The Inn at Sudbury is the most impor- 
tant example. This he describes quite minutely in the 
prologue to "The Wayside Inn." It was no longer an 
inn in Longfellow's day, though for a hundred and 
seventy-five years it had flourished as the Red-Horse 
Tavern, kept by the Howes, who, twenty-five years 
before that, had built it for a country house. Losing 
their fortune they became inn-keepers. It is about 
twenty miles from Boston, in a lovely valley, and 
stands upon a winding road with ancient oaks to shade 
the front of the house. 



248 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"As ancient is this hostelry 
As any in the land may be, 
Built in the old Colonial day, 
When men lived in a grander way, 
With ampler hospitality; 
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, 
Now somewhat fallen to decay. 
With weather stains upon the wall, 
And stairways worn and crazy doors, 
And creaking and uneven floors, 
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. 



"A region of repose it seems, 
A place of slumber and of dreams. 
Remote among the wooded hills! 
For there no noisy railway speeds. 
Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; 
But noon and night the pausing teams 
Stop under the great oaks, that throw 
Tangles of light and shade below. 
On roofs and doors and window sills. 

"Across the road the barns display 
Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay. 
Through the wide doors their breezes blow. 
The wattled cocks strut to and fro. 
And half effaced by rain and shine, 
The Red Horse prances on the sign. 

"Round this old-fashioned quaint abode 
Deep silence reigned, save when a gust 
Went rushing down the country road, 
And skeletons of leaves and dust, 
A moment quickened by its breath. 
Shuddered and danced their dance of death. 
And through the ancient oaks o'erhead 
Mysterious voices moaned and fled." 



IN CAMBRIDGE 249 

Nearer home again is "In the Churchyard at Cam- 
bridge." This is the churchyard of Christ Church, 
on Garden Street, opposite the Common. It has 
known, like many another church, the vicissitudes of 
war. Connecticut troops were quartered here about 
the time of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and, being Tory 
property, its lead organ-pipes were melted into bul- 
lets. The legend which the poet has versified so 
gracefully is told of the Vassall monument, under 
which Madame Vassall is buried. It is a red sand- 
stone slab, supported by five square pilasters, one at 
each corner and one in the middle. On its upper 
surface is engraved a vase and an image of the Sun — 
supposed to symbolize the origin of the name, Vassal. 
The legend goes that two slaves were buried here, 
one at the head, and one at the foot of the tomb. 

Still nearer home, within sound again of the river- 
nymphs, is the exquisite poem on the home of James 
Russell Lowell, "The Herons of Elmwood," one of 
the most enchanting songs ever simg by poet to a 
brother poet : 

"Warm and still is the summer night, 
As here by the river's brink I wander; 
While overhead are the stars, and white 

The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder. 

"Silent are all the sounds of day; 

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets. 
And the cry of the herons winging their way 
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets. 

"Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass 

To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes, 
Sing him the song of the green morass, 

iSid the tides that water the reeds and rushes. 



250 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 

"Sing him the mystical song of the Hern, 

And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking; 
For only a sound of lament we discern, 

And cannot interpret the words you are speaking. 

"Sing of the air, and the wild delight 

Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you. 
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight 

Through the drift of the floating mists that enfold 
you; 

"Of the landscape lying so far below. 

With its towns and rivers and desert places ; 
And the splendor of light above, and the glow 
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. 

"Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, 
Or of Minnesingers in .old black-letter, 
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours. 

And if yours are not sweeter and milder and 
better. 

"Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate. 

Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, 
Some one hath lingered to meditate. 

And send him unseen this friendly greeting ; 

"That many another hath done the same, 

Though not by a sound was the silence broken; 
The surest pledge of a deathless name 

Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken." 

Besides the pervading cheerfulness of the Long- 
fellow house with its many windows, one is struck with 
the harmony that seems to breathe from it. Harmony 
of line, of proportion, of color,* of atmosphere. The 
two rooms most interesting to the visitor are the upper 



'^f^^i 




IN CAMBRIDGE 251 

room, first the poet's study, where his most joy- 
ous nature poems were written, and the room direct- 
ly beneath, which he used as a study from the time of 
his marriage with Miss Appleton, when, Mrs. Craigie 
having died, he became the happy possessor of the 
house. 

With the upper one we naturally associate especial- 
ly his early poems, written between 1837 and 1845; 
with the lower room his maturer work, when he was 
looking more into the lives of men and women than 
into nature. Yet it must have been this early keen 
appreciation that helped him to write so understand- 
ingly of scenes he had never seen. The lower room 
still remains the poet's study and is kept as nearly as 
possible as it was in his life-time. There is the large 
round table in the centre, upon which, lying still open, 
is an old-fashioned writing desk with the slant our 
forefathers thought so necessary for successful pen- 
manship. Back of this is no ordinary ink-stand, but 
an ebon affair of handsome design, with a little 
bronze statue between the bottles, that once belonged 
to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is flanked by a 
little jar of quill pens. A book about the Indians, one 
about Acadia, the "Golden Treasury of Song," an 
early edition of the poet's own works are among the 
other furnishings of the table. A bust of Shake- 
speare looks with peculiar benignity down upon these 
memorials of his brother poet, who, though lesser in 
genius, "warbled his native woodnotes wild" after 
his own fashion as spontaneously and sincerely as the 
greater bard. A laurel wreath frames often the 
poet's portrait, for friends still send tributes of flowers 
upon his birthday. Upon leaving the house the visitor 



^'.f 






252 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ^•^'^ ''^ 

16 



should always pause a moment upon the threshold and . 
look through the archway made by two slender elms, 
planted at the gateway in the poet's time; at the 
gleaming river which wound itself so tenderly into 
the thought of his earlier verse. 



